High-resolution, Fully-coupled Simulations of the Greenland Ice Sheet in a Future, Strong Warming Scenario
Abstract
The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is rapidly losing mass in response to global warming, which is being exacerbated by Arctic amplification. GrIS mass loss is driven both by atmospheric warming, increasing surface melt and meltwater runoff, and ocean warming, leading to glacier speedup and enhanced ice discharge. Constraining future GrIS mass loss therefore calls for a unified and coupled model infrastructure employed at high horizontal resolution, allowing to resolve individual glacier basins and detailed atmospheric processes such as orographic precipitation.
Here we present first results of a global, fully coupled Earth System Model (CESM2) simulation, driven by an idealized 1% CO2 annual increase scenario. A variable-resolution grid is used to represent the atmosphere and land, which features ¼˚ regional refinement over the Arctic, including Greenland, and includes a fully interactive GrIS that uses a 4 km grid. We will present results of the pre-industrial simulation, showing that the GrIS is in equilibrium with the climate forcing, and then present how GrIS mass balance and surface mass balance change in response to a rapidly warming climate. Finally, we compare our results with a low-resolution CESM2 simulation, and identify where the higher resolution provides added value.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2022
- Bibcode:
- 2022AGUFM.C15F0641Y