The Cryosphere www.the-cryosphere.net 1994-0416 1994-0424 2 2 2008 10.5194/tc-2-117-2008 http://www.the-cryosphere.net/2/117/2008/ http://www.the-cryosphere.net/2/117/2008/tc-2-117-2008.html http://www.the-cryosphere.net/2/117/2008/tc-2-117-2008.pdf 117 129 2008-09-24 Estimation of the Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance for the 20th and 21st centuries X. Fettweis xavier.fettweis@ulg.ac.be E. Hanna H. Gallée P. Huybrechts M. Erpicum Département de Géographie, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK LGGE – Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement, Grenoble, France Departement Geografie, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussel, Belgium Results from a regional climate simulation (1970–2006) over the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) reveals that more than 97% of the interannual variability of the modelled Surface Mass Balance (SMB) can be explained by the GrIS summer temperature anomaly and the GrIS annual precipitation anomaly. This multiple regression is then used to empirically estimate the GrIS SMB since 1900 from climatological time series. The projected SMB changes in the 21st century are investigated with the set of simulations performed with atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR4). These estimates show that the high surface mass loss rates of recent years are not unprecedented in the GrIS history of the last hundred years. The minimum SMB rate seems to have occurred earlier in the 1930s and corresponds to a zero SMB rate. The AOGCMs project that the SMB rate of the 1930s would be common at the end of 2100. The temperature would be higher than in the 1930s but the increase of accumulation in the 21st century would partly offset the acceleration of surface melt due to the temperature increase. However, these assumptions are based on an empirical multiple regression only validated for recent/current climatic conditions, and the accuracy and time homogeneity of the data sets and AOGCM results used in these estimations constitute a large uncertainty. Bamber, J. L., Layberry, R. L., and Gogineni, S. P.: A new ice thickness and bed data set for the Greenland ice sheet: part I, Measurement, data reduction, and errors, J. Geophys. Res., 106, 33 773–33 780, 2001. Box, J. E.: Survey of Greenland instrumental temperature records: 1873–2001, Int. J. Climatol., 22, 1829–1847, 2002. Box, J. E., Bromwich, D. H., and Bai, L.-S.: Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance for 1991–2000: application of Polar MM5 mesoscale model and in-situ data, J. Geophys. Res., 109(D16), D16105, doi:10.1029/2003JD004451, 2004. Box, J. E. and Cohen, A. E.: Upper-air temperatures around Greenland: 1964–2005, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L12706, doi:10.1029/2006GL025723, 2006. Box, J. E., Bromwich, D. H., Veenhuis, B. A., Bai, L.-S., Stroeve, J. C., Rogers, J. C., Steffen, K., Haran, T., and Wang, S.-H.: Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance variability (1988–2004) from calibrated Polar MM5 output, J. Climate, 19(12), 2783–2800, 2006. Cappelen, J., Jorgensen, B. V., Laursen, E. V., Stannius, L. S., and Thomsen, R. S.: The observed climate of Greenland, 1958–99 – with climatological standard normals, 1961–1990, Tech. Rep. 00-18, 152 pp., Danish Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen, 2001. Chen J. L., Wilson, C. R., and Tapley, B. D.: Satellite Gravity Measurements Confirm Accelerated Melting of Greenland Ice Sheet, Science, 313, 1958–1960, doi:10.1126/science.1129007, 2006. Chylek, P., Dubey, M. K., and Lesins, G.: Greenland warming of 1920–1930 and 1995–2005, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L11707, doi:10.1029/2006GL026510, 2006. Chylek, P., McCabe, M., Dubey, M. K., and Dozier, J.: Remote sensing of Greenland ice sheet using multispectral near-infrared and visible radiances, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S20, doi:10.1029/2007JD008742, 2007. Christensen, J. H., Hewitson, B., Busuioc, A., Chen, A., Gao, X., Held, I., Jones, R., Kolli, R. K., Kwon, W.-T., Laprise, R., Magana Rueda, V., Mearns, L., Menendez, C. G., Räisänen, J., Rinke, A., Sarr, A., and Whetton, P.: Regional Climate Projections, in: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K. B., Tignor, M., and Miller, H. L., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 2007. Christy, J. R., Spencer, R. W., and Braswell, W. D.: MSU Tropospheric temperatures: Data set construction and radiosonde comparisons, J. Atmos. Ocean. Tech., 17, 1153–1170, 2000. Cuffey, K. M. and Marshall, S. J.: Substantial contribution to sea level rise during the last interglacial from the Greenland ice sheet, Nature, 404, 591–594, 2000. Dai, A., Fung, I. Y., and Del Genio, A. D.: Surface observed global land precipitation variations during 1900–1988, J. Climate, 10, 2943–2962, 1997. Fettweis, X., Gallée, H., Lefebre, L., and van Ypersele, J.-P.: Greenland surface mass balance simulated by a regional climate model and comparison with satellite derived data in 1990–1991, Clim. Dynam., 24, 623–640, doi:10.1007/s00382-005-0010-y, 2005. Fettweis, X., van Ypersele, J.-P., Gallée, H., Lefebre, F., and Lefebvre, W.: The 1979–2005 Greenland ice sheet melt extent from passive microwave data using an improved version of the melt retrieval XPGR algorithm, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L05502, doi:10.1029/2006GL028787, 2007. Fettweis, X.: Reconstruction of the 1979–2006 Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance using the regional climate model MAR, The Cryosphere, 1, 21–40, 2007. Gregory, J., Dixon, K., Stouffer, R. J., Weaver, A., Driesschaert, E., Eby, M., Fichefet, T., Hasumi, H., Hu, A., Jungclaus, J., Kamenkovich, I., Levermann, A., Montoya, M., Murakami, S., Nawrath, S., Oka, A., Solokov, A., and Thorpe, R.: A model intercomparison of changes in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation in response to increasing atmospheric concentration, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L12703, doi:10.1029/2005GL023209, 2005. Gregory, J. and Huybrechts, P.: Ice-sheet contributions to future sea-level change, Philos. T. R. Soc. A, 364, 1709–1731, 2006. Hanna, E., Box, J., and Huybrechts, P.: Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance, Arctic Report Card 2007, update to State of Arctic Report 2006, NOAA, available at http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/, 2007. Hanna, E., Huybrechts, P., Steffen, K. , Cappelen, J., Huff, R., Shuman, C., Irvine-Fynn, T., Wise, S., and Griffiths, M.: Increased runoff from melt from the Greenland Ice Sheet: a response to global warming, J. Climate, 21, 331–341, 2008. Huybrechts, P., Gregory, J., Janssens, I., and Wild, M.: Modelling Antarctic and Greenland volume changes during the 20th and 21st centuries forced by GCM time slice integrations, Global Planet. Change, 42, 83–105, doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2003.11.011, 2004. IPCC, 2007: in: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K. B., Tignor, M., and Miller, H. L., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 2007. Kalnay, E., Kanamitsu, M., Kistler, R., Collins, W., Deaven, D., Gandin, L., Iredell, M., Saha, S., White, G., Woollen, J., Zhu, Y., Leetmaa, A., Reynolds, B., Chelliah, M., Ebisuzaki, W., Higgins, W., Janowiak, J., Mo, K., Ropelewski, C., Wang, J., Jenne, R., and Joseph, D.: The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 77, 437–471, 1996. Luthcke, S. B., Zwally, H. J., Abdalati, W., Rowlands, D. D., Ray, R. D., Nerem, R. S., Lemoine, F. G., McCarthy, J. J., and Chinn, D. S.: Recent Greenland Ice Mass Loss by Drainage System from Satellite Gravity Observations, Science, 314(5803), 1286, doi:10.1126/science.1130776, 2006. Meehl, G. A., Stocker, T. F., Collins, W. D., Friedlingstein, P., Gaye, A. T., Gregory, J. M., Kitoh, A., Knutti, R., Murphy, J. M., Noda, A., Raper, S. C. B., Watterson, I. G., Weaver, A. J., and Zhao, Z.-C.: Global Climate Projections, in: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K. B., Tignor, M., and Miller, H. L., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 2007. Mitchell, T. D. and Jones, P. D.: An improved method of constructing a database of monthly climate observations and associated high-resolution grids, Int. J. Climatol., 25, 693–712, 2005. Nakicenovic, N., Alcamo, J., Davis, G., et al.: Special Report on Emissions Scenarios: A Special Report of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 599 pp., available online at: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/emission, 2000. Peterson, T. C. and Vose, R. S.: An overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network temperature database, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 78(12), 2837–2849, 1997. Oerlemans, J., Bassford, R. P., Chapman, W., Dowdeswell, J. A., Glazovsky, A. F., Hagen, J. O., Melvold, K., de Wildt, M. R. and van de Wal, R. S. W.: Estimating the contribution from Arctic glaciers to sea-level change in the next hundred years, Ann. Glaciol, 42, 230–236, 2005. Rahmstorf, S., Crucifix, M., Ganopolski, A., Goosse, H., Kamenkovich, I., Knutti, R., Lohmann, G., Marsh, R., Mysak, L. A., Wang, Z., and Weaver, A. J.: Thermohaline circulation hysteresis: A model intercomparison, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32(23), L23605, doi:10.1029/2005GL023655, 2005. Randall, D. A., Wood, R. A., Bony, S., Colman, R., Fichefet, T., Fyfe, J., Kattsov, V., Pitman, A., Shukla, J., Srinivasan, J., Stouffer, R. J., Sumi, A., and Taylor, K. E.: Climate Models and Their Evaluation, in: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K. B., Tignor, M., and Miller, H. L., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 2007. Reeh, N., Mayer, C., Miller, H., Thomson, H. H., and Weidick, A.: Present and past climate control on fjord glaciations in Greenland: Implications for IRD-deposition in the sea, Geophys. Res. Lett., 26, 1039–1042, 1999. Ridley, J., Huybrechts, P., Gregory, J. M., and Lowe, J.: Elimination of the Greenland ice sheet in a high-CO₂ climate, J. Climate, 18(17), 3409–3427, 2005. Rignot, E. and Kanagaratnam, P.: Changes in the Velocity Structure of the Greenland Ice Sheet, Science, 311, 986–990, doi: 10.1126/science.112138, 2006. Swingedouw, D., Braconnot, P., and Marti, O.: Sensitivity of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation to the melting from northern glaciers in climate change experiments, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L07711, doi:10.1029/2006GL025765, 2006. Thomas, R., Frederick, E., Krabill, W., Manizade, S., and Martin, C.: Progressive increase in ice loss from Greenland, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L10503, doi:10.1029/2006GL026075, 2006. Uppala, S. M., Kallberg, P. W., Simmons, A. J., Andrae, U., da Costa Bechtold, V., Fiorino, M., Gibson, J. K., Haseler, J., Hernandez, A., Kelly, G. A., Li, X., Onogi, K., Saarinen, S., Sokka, N., Allan, R. P., Andersson, E., Arpe, K., Balmaseda, M. A., Beljaars, A. C. M., van de Berg, L., Bidlot, J., Bormann, N., Caires, S., Chevallier, F., Dethof, A., Dragosavac, M., Fisher, M., Fuentes, M., Hagemann, S., Holm, E., Hoskins, B., Isaksen, L., Janssen, P. A. E. M., Jenne, R., McNally, A. P., Mahfouf, J.-F., Morcrette, J.-J., Rayner, N. A., Saunders, R. W., Simon, P., Sterl, A., Trenberth, K. E., Untch, A.,Vasiljevic, D., Viterbo, P., and Woollen, J.: The ECMWF re-analysis, Q. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 131, 2961–3012, doi:10.1256/qj.04.176, 2005. Velicogna, I. and J. Wahr: Measurements of Time-Variable Gravity Show Mass Loss in Antarctica, Science, 311 (5768), 1754–1756, 2006. Vinther, B. M., Andersen, K. K., Jones, P. D., Briffa, K. R., and Cappelen, J.: Extending Greenland temperature records into the late eighteenth century, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D11105, doi:10.1029/2005JD006810, 2006. Zwally, J. H., Abdalati, W., Herring, T., Larson, K., Saba, J., and Steffen, K.: Surface Melt-Induced Acceleration of Greenland Ice-Sheet Flow, Science, 297, 218–222, 2002.