21st century change in precipitation on the Greenland Ice Sheet using high resolution regional climate models

[en] Abstract. An ensemble of regional climate model simulations downscaling global climate models within Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) is used to estimate future precipitation changes for the Greenland ice sheet under a range of climate change pathways. The regional climate models are HIRHAM5, MAR3.12 and RACMO2.3p2 contributing a total of eleven simulations for the SSP5-8.5 scenario, five simulations for the SSP2-4.5 scenario and four simulations for the SSP1-2.6 scenario. The Greenland ice sheet is divided into six drainage basins to evaluate the change in total (snow plus rain) precipitation in regions with different precipitation characteristics. Compared with the reference period 1971–2000, the ensemble median change in precipitation for the full Greenland ice sheet for the SSP5-8.5 scenario is estimated to be about +60 Gt (+8 %) per year during the 2031–2060 period and +170 Gt (+24 %) per year during the 2071–2100 period. We see similar ensemble median change for the 2031–2060 period for the SSP1-2.6 and SSP2-4.5 scenarios while the 2071–2100 change is +40 and +80 Gt (+6 % and +11 %) per year for SSP1-2.6 and SSP2-4.5, respectively. Using linear regression on the annual mean change in near-surface (2 m) air temperature and precipitation over the ice sheet, we estimate an increase of about 35 Gt per year in precipitation (equal to about 5 %) for every degree of warming during the 21st century. The change in precipitation phase shows a non-linear increase in rainfall with temperature, particularly along the outer edge and the southern part of the ice sheet. The regional climate model output is compared with an ensemble of global climate models within CMIP6 showing similar patterns in precipitation change but with overall larger changes in the CMIP6 ensemble median compared with the regional climate model ensemble median.

Research Center/Unit :

SPHERES - ULiège

Disciplines :

Earth sciences & physical geography

Author, co-author :

Boberg, Fredrik

Fettweis, Xavier ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de géographie > Climatologie et Topoclimatologie

Hansen, Nicolaj

Mottram, Ruth

van den Broeke, Michiel R.

Language :

English

Title :

21st century change in precipitation on the Greenland Ice Sheet using high resolution regional climate models

Publication date :

21 May 2026

Journal title :

The Cryosphere

ISSN :

1994-0416

eISSN :

1994-0424

Publisher :

Copernicus GmbH

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

2947-2960

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Tags :

CÉCI : Consortium des Équipements de Calcul Intensif
Tier-1 supercomputer

Additional URL :

https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/20/2947/2026/tc-20-2947-2026.pdf

Funders :

EU - European Union
NNF - Novo Nordisk Foundation

Funding text :

This research has been supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 project PROTECT (grant no. 869304) and the Novo Nordisk Foundation project PRECISE (grant no. NNF23OC0081251).

Available on ORBi :

since 22 May 2026

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