Modeling the response of northwest Greenland to enhanced ocean thermal forcing and subglacial discharge

Morlighem, Mathieu; Wood, Michael; Seroussi, Hélène; Choi, Youngmin; Rignot, Eric

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-723-2019

Articles | Volume 13, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-723-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-723-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 2

Research article

|

01 Mar 2019

Research article |

| 01 Mar 2019

Modeling the response of northwest Greenland to enhanced ocean thermal forcing and subglacial discharge

Mathieu Morlighem, Michael Wood, Hélène Seroussi, Youngmin Choi, and Eric Rignot

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-723-2019-supplement

Data sets

Continental scale, high order, high spatial resolution, ice sheet modeling using the Ice Sheet System Model E. Larour, H. Seroussi, M. Morlighem, and E. Rignot https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JF002140

Short summary

Many glaciers along the coast of Greenland have been retreating. It has been suggested that this retreat is triggered by the presence of warm water in the fjords, and surface melt at the top of the ice sheet is exacerbating this problem. Here, we quantify the vulnerability of northwestern Greenland to further warming using a numerical model. We find that in current conditions, this sector alone will contribute more than 1 cm to sea rise level by 2100, and up to 3 cm in the most extreme scenario.