Steffen K, Abdalati W and Stroeve J (1993) Climate sensitivity studies of the Greenland ice sheet using satellite AVHRR, SMMR SSM/I and in situ data. Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics 51(3–4): 239–258. DOI:10.1007/bf01030497

The polar regions exhibit some of the most visible signs of climate change globally; annual mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) has quadrupled in recent decades, from 51 &#177; 65 Gt yr&#8722;1 (1992-2001) to 211 &#177; 37 Gt yr&#8722;1 (2002-2011). This can partly be attributed to the widespread retreat and speed-up of marine-terminating glaciers. The Zachariae Isstr&#248;m (ZI) is an outlet glacier of the Northeast Greenland Ice Steam (NEGIS), one of the largest ice streams of the GrIS (700km), draining approximately 12% of the ice sheet interior. Observations show that the ZI began accelerating in 2000, resulting in the collapse of the floating ice shelf between 2002 and 2003. By 2014, the ice shelf extended over an area of 52km2, a 95% decrease in area since 2002, where it extended over 1040km2. Paleo-reconstructions provide an opportunity to extend observational records in order to understand the oceanic and climatic processes governing the position of the grounding zone of marine terminating glaciers and the extent of floating ice shelves. Such datasets are thus necessary if we are to constrain the impact of future climate change projections on the Arctic cryosphere.A multi-proxy approach, involving grain size, geochemical, foraminiferal and sedimentary analysis was applied to marine sediment core DA17-NG-ST8-92G, collected offshore of the ZI, on &#160;the Northeast Greenland Shelf. The aim was to reconstruct changes in the extent of the ZI and the palaeoceanographic conditions throughout the Early to Mid Holocene (c.a. 12,500-5,000 cal. yrs. BP). Evidence from the analysis of these datasets indicates that whilst there has been no grounded ice at the site over the last 12,500 years, the ice shelf of the ZI extended as a floating ice shelf over the site between 12,500 and 9,200 cal. yrs. BP, with the grounding line further inland from our study site. This was followed by a retreat in the ice shelf extent during the Holocene Thermal Maximum; this was likely to have been governed, in part, by basal melting driven by Atlantic Water (AW) recirculated from Svalbard or from the Arctic Ocean. Evidence from benthic foraminifera suggest that there was a shift from the dominance of AW to Polar Water at around 7,500 cal. yrs. BP, although the ice shelf did not expand again despite of this cooling of subsurface waters.

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Economics of the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1814990116 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 116 (25) ◽

pp. 12261-12269 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

William Nordhaus

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Large Scale ◽

Social Cost ◽

Climate Models ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Greenland Ice Sheet ◽

Reduced Form ◽

Small Contribution ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Impact

Concerns about the impact on large-scale earth systems have taken center stage in the scientific and economic analysis of climate change. The present study analyzes the economic impact of a potential disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet (GIS). The study introduces an approach that combines long-run economic growth models, climate models, and reduced-form GIS models. The study demonstrates that social cost–benefit analysis and damage-limiting strategies can be usefully extended to illuminate issues with major long-term consequences, as well as concerns such as potential tipping points, irreversibility, and hysteresis. A key finding is that, under a wide range of assumptions, the risk of GIS disintegration makes a small contribution to the optimal stringency of current policy or to the overall social cost of climate change. It finds that the cost of GIS disintegration adds less than 5% to the social cost of carbon (SCC) under alternative discount rates and estimates of the GIS dynamics.

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Variations in snowpack melt on the Greenland ice sheet based on passive-microwave measurements

Journal of Glaciology ◽

10.1017/s0022143000017755 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 41 (137) ◽

pp. 51-60 ◽

Cited By ~ 90

Author(s):

Thomas L. Mote ◽

Mark R. Anderson

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Greenland Ice Sheet ◽

Ablation Rate ◽

Passive Microwave ◽

Microwave Emission ◽

The Arctic ◽

Emission Model ◽

The Impact ◽

Microwave Data

AbstractA simple microwave-emission model is used to simulate 37 GHz brightness temperatures associated with snowpack-melt conditions for locations across the Greenland ice sheet. The simulated values are utilized as threshold values and compared to daily, gridded SMMR and SSM/I passive-microwave data, in order to reveal regions experiencing melt. The spatial extent of the area classified as melting is examined on a daily, monthly and seasonal (May-August) basis for 1979–91. The typical seasonal cycle of melt coverage shows melt beginning in late April, a rapid increase in the melting area from mid-May to mid-July, a rapid decrease in melt extent from late July through mid-August, and cessation of melt in late September. Seasonal averages of the daily melt extents demonstrate an apparent increase in melt coverage over the 13 year period of approximately 3.8% annually (significant at the 95% confidence interval). This increase is dominated by statistically significant positive trends in melt coverage during July and August in the west and southwest of the ice sheet. We find that a linear correlation between microwave-derived melt extent and a surface measure of ablation rate is significant in June and July but not August, so caution must be exercised in using the microwave-derived melt extents in August. Nevertheless, knowledge of the variability of snowpack melt on the Greenland ice sheet as derived from microwave data should prove useful in detecting climate change in the Arctic and examining the impact of climate change on the ice sheet.

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Greenland fjord productivity under climate change - multiproxy late-Holocene records from two contrasting fjord systems

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-853 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Anna Bang Kvorning ◽

Tania Beate Thomsen ◽

Mimmi Oksman ◽

Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz ◽

Christof Pearce ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Primary Productivity ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Greenland Ice Sheet ◽

Ice Age ◽

Dinoflagellate Cyst ◽

Coastal Marine ◽

The Future ◽

The Impact

The Greenland Ice Sheet has been losing mass at an increasing rate over the past decades due to atmospheric and oceanic warming. As a result, freshwater discharge from the Greenland Ice sheet has doubled in the last two decades and is expected to strongly increase in the future, with a large impact on the functioning of coastal marine ecosystems. While glacier runoff delivers nutrients and labile carbon into the fjords, an increase in sediment inputs is expected to have a negative impact in primary productivity, due to increased turbidity and subsequent reduction in available light for photosynthesis. Bridging modern satellite, historical and paleo-records is a key approach, as our capacity to project future scenarios requires an understanding of long-term dynamics, and insight into past warm(er) climate periods that may serve as analogues for the future. We will present results from a master&#8217;s project developed within the framework of project GreenShift: Greenland fjord productivity under climate change. Two high-resolution sediment core records from two contrasting fjord systems in NE and SW Greenland were analysed to assess the impact of Greenland Ice Sheet melt on sediment fluxes and primary productivity, focusing on the time period from the Little Ice Age until present. The overall goal of this work is to gain a better understanding of the possible linkages between GIS melt and productivity in Greenland fjord systems, with a view to improve future projections. We followed a multiproxy approach including grain-size distribution, organic carbon and biogenic silica fluxes; and dinoflagellate cyst analyses. Our preliminary results show an overall trend towards sea-surface freshening in recent decades for both fjords influenced by land-terminating (NE) and marine-terminating (SW) glaciers, alongside with important differences both in terms of sedimentary organic composition and dinoflagellate cyst assemblages. &#160;

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Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance 1991–2000: Application of Polar MM5 mesoscale model and in situ data

Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres ◽

10.1029/2003jd004451 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 109 (D16) ◽

Cited By ~ 126

Author(s):

Jason E. Box

Keyword(s):

Mass Balance ◽

Mesoscale Model ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Greenland Ice Sheet ◽

Surface Mass Balance ◽

Surface Mass ◽

Sheet Surface ◽

In Situ Data

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Greenland Ice Sheet influence on Last Interglacial climate: global sensitivity studies performed with an atmosphere–ocean general circulation model

Climate of the Past ◽

10.5194/cp-12-1313-2016 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 12 (6) ◽

pp. 1313-1338 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Madlene Pfeiffer ◽

Gerrit Lohmann

Keyword(s):

Temperature Change ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Greenland Ice Sheet ◽

Minor Importance ◽

Last Interglacial ◽

Proxy Data ◽

Proxy Records ◽

Thermal Maximum ◽

Sensitivity Studies ◽

The Impact

Abstract. During the Last Interglacial (LIG, ∼130–115 kiloyears (kyr) before present (BP)), the northern high latitudes were characterized by higher temperatures than those of the late Holocene and a lower Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS). However, the impact of a reduced GIS on the global climate has not yet been well constrained. In this study, we quantify the contribution of the GIS to LIG warmth by performing various sensitivity studies based on equilibrium simulations, employing the Community Earth System Models (COSMOS), with a focus on height and extent of the GIS. We present the first study on the effects of a reduction in the GIS on the surface temperature (TS) on a global scale and separate the contribution of astronomical forcing and changes in GIS to LIG warmth. The strong Northern Hemisphere summer warming of approximately 2 °C (with respect to pre-industrial) is mainly caused by increased summer insolation. Reducing the height by ∼ 1300 m and the extent of the GIS does not have a strong influence during summer, leading to an additional global warming of only +0.24 °C compared to the purely insolation-driven LIG. The effect of a reduction in the GIS is, however, strongest during local winter, with up to +5 °C regional warming and with an increase in global average temperature of +0.48 °C. In order to evaluate the performance of our LIG simulations, we additionally compare the simulated TS anomalies with marine and terrestrial proxy-based LIG temperature anomalies derived from three different proxy data compilations. Our model results are in good agreement with proxy records with respect to the warming pattern but underestimate the magnitude of temperature change when compared to reconstructions, suggesting a potential misinterpretation of the proxy records or deficits in our model. However, we are able to partly reduce the mismatch between model and data by additionally taking into account the potential seasonal bias of the proxy record and/or the uncertainties in the dating of the proxy records for the LIG thermal maximum. The seasonal bias and the uncertainty of the timing are estimated from new transient model simulations covering the whole LIG. The model–data comparison improves for proxies that represent annual mean temperatures when the GIS is reduced and when we take the local thermal maximum during the LIG (130–120 kyr BP) into account. For proxy data that represent summer temperatures, changes in the GIS are of minor importance for sea surface temperatures. However, the annual mean and summer temperature change over Greenland in the reduced GIS simulations seems to be overestimated as compared to the local ice core data, which could be related to the interpretation of the recorder system and/or the assumptions of GIS reduction. Thus, the question regarding the real size of the GIS during the LIG has yet to be answered.

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Variations in snowpack melt on the Greenland ice sheet based on passive-microwave measurements

Journal of Glaciology ◽

10.3189/s0022143000017755 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 41 (137) ◽

pp. 51-60 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Thomas L. Mote ◽

Mark R. Anderson

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Greenland Ice Sheet ◽

Ablation Rate ◽

Passive Microwave ◽

Microwave Emission ◽

The Arctic ◽

Emission Model ◽

The Impact ◽

Microwave Data

AbstractA simple microwave-emission model is used to simulate 37 GHz brightness temperatures associated with snowpack-melt conditions for locations across the Greenland ice sheet. The simulated values are utilized as threshold values and compared to daily, gridded SMMR and SSM/I passive-microwave data, in order to reveal regions experiencing melt. The spatial extent of the area classified as melting is examined on a daily, monthly and seasonal (May-August) basis for 1979–91. The typical seasonal cycle of melt coverage shows melt beginning in late April, a rapid increase in the melting area from mid-May to mid-July, a rapid decrease in melt extent from late July through mid-August, and cessation of melt in late September. Seasonal averages of the daily melt extents demonstrate an apparent increase in melt coverage over the 13 year period of approximately 3.8% annually (significant at the 95% confidence interval). This increase is dominated by statistically significant positive trends in melt coverage during July and August in the west and southwest of the ice sheet. We find that a linear correlation between microwave-derived melt extent and a surface measure of ablation rate is significant in June and July but not August, so caution must be exercised in using the microwave-derived melt extents in August. Nevertheless, knowledge of the variability of snowpack melt on the Greenland ice sheet as derived from microwave data should prove useful in detecting climate change in the Arctic and examining the impact of climate change on the ice sheet.

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Greenland Ice Sheet influence on Last Interglacial climate: global sensitivity studies performed with an atmosphere–ocean general circulation model

Climate of the Past Discussions ◽

10.5194/cpd-11-933-2015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 933-995 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

M. Pfeiffer ◽

G. Lohmann

Keyword(s):

General Circulation ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Greenland Ice Sheet ◽

Circulation Model ◽

Ocean General Circulation Model ◽

High Latitudes ◽

Last Interglacial ◽

Proxy Records ◽

Sensitivity Studies ◽

The Impact

Abstract. During the Last Interglacial (LIG, 130–115 kiloyear before present), the northern high latitudes experienced higher temperatures than those of the late Holocene with a notably lower Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS). However, the impact of a reduced GIS on the global climate has not yet been well constrained. In this study, we quantify the contribution of the GIS to LIG warmth by performing various sensitivity studies, employing the Community Earth System Models (COSMOS), with a focus on height and extent of the GIS. In order to asses the effects of insolation changes over time and for a comparison of LIG climate with the current interglacial, we perform transient simulations covering the whole LIG and Holocene. We analyze surface air temperature (SAT) and separate the contribution of different forcings to LIG warmth. The strong Northern Hemisphere warming is mainly caused by increased summer insolation. Reducing the height and extent of the GIS leads to a warming of several degrees Celcius in the northern and southern high latitudes during local winter. In order to evaluate the performance of our LIG simulations, we additionally compare the simulated SAT anomalies with marine and terrestrial proxy-based LIG temperature anomalies. Our model results are in good agreement with proxy records with respect to the pattern, but underestimate the reconstructed temperatures. We are able to reduce the mismatch between model and data by taking into account the potential seasonal bias of the proxy record and the uncertainties in the dating of the proxy records for the LIG thermal maximum. The seasonal bias and the uncertainty of the timing are estimated from our own transient model simulations. We note however that our LIG simulations are not able to reproduce the full magnitude of temperature changes indicated by the proxies, suggesting a potential misinterpretation of the proxy records or deficits of our model.

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Validation of airborne and satellite altimetry data by Arctic Truck citizen science

Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin ◽

10.34194/geusb.v47.5369 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 47 ◽

Author(s):

Andreas Stokholm ◽

Sine M. Hvidegaard ◽

Rene Forsberg ◽

Sebastian B. Simonsen

Keyword(s):

Citizen Science ◽

Satellite Altimetry ◽

Ice Sheets ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Greenland Ice Sheet ◽

Gps Data ◽

Kinematic Gps ◽

In Situ Data ◽

Cost Efficient

The elevation of ice sheets response dynamically to climate change and satellite altimetry is the preferred tool for evaluating the ice sheet-wide changes. In-situ validation are needed to ensure the quality of the observed elevation changes, but the coast is most often the limiting factor for the amount of in-situ data available. As more and more tourists are accessing the ice sheets, citizen science might provide the needed in-situ data in an environmental and cost-efficient way. Here, we investigate opportunistic kinematic-GPS profiles across the Greenland ice sheet, collected the American-Icelandic Expedition on the Greenlandic icecap 2018. First, the collected GPS-data are tested against widely used NASA Operation IceBridge airborne lidar-scannings, and shows good agreement, with an accuracy of 11 cm. The main difference is attributed to changes in the compaction of the snow as encountered while driving, as well as changing tire pressures. The kinematic-GPS data is then used for satellite validation by inter-comparing it with data from ESA's CryoSat-2 mission. Here, a bias in the two records of 89 cm is observed, with the Cryosat-2 observation originating from the subsurface of the ice sheet. This points to surface penetration of Ku-band radar on the Greenland ice sheet, and the observed magnitude is in accordance with the literature. Finally, we assess the long-term durability of citizen science kinematic-GPS data, when compared to a profile obtained in 2005 near Kangerlussuaq, West Greenland. Here, the records show an average ice elevation decreased of 9 meters and with peaks at 25.7 meters. This result show how kinematic-GPS data can be used to see the full impact of climate change by repeat measurements. Thereby are citizen science kinematic-GPS data shown to be a highly versatile approach to acquire high-resolution validation data for satellite altimetry, with the added benefit of potentially direct sampling properties of the surface and firn, when applying traditional airborne platforms. Thereby linking up with citizen-science expeditions is truly a beneficial way of providing cost-efficient satellite validations and may also have a societal impact by involving more in the climate monitoring of ice sheets.

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