Improved representation of East Antarctic surface mass balance in a regional atmospheric climate model

Wessem, Jan Melchior van; Reijmer, C. H.; Morlighem, Mathieu; Mouginot, J.; Rignot, Eric; Medley, Brooke; Joughin, Ian; Wouters, Bert; Depoorter, Mathieu; Bamber, Jonathan; Lenaerts, Jan T. M.; Berg, Willem Jan van de; Broeke, M. R. van den; Meijgaard, E. van

doi:10.3189/2014jog14j051

Cited by 248 publications

(353 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(86 reference statements)

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“…At the lateral boundaries the model is forced by ERA-Interim reanalysis data (January 1979-December 2014; Dee et al (2011)) and the interior of the domain is allowed to evolve freely. RACMO2.3 has been proven to realistically simulate Antarctic surface mass balance and implicitly the precipitation fields (Van Wessem et al, 2014), as well as the very large precipitation gradients along the coastal margins of the ice sheet.…”

Section: Racmomentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing distributions of sea ice melt and meteoric water west of the Antarctic Peninsula

Meredith

Stammerjohn

Venables

et al. 2017

Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography

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Changing distributions of sea ice melt and meteoric water west of the Antarctic Peninsula, Deep-Sea Research Part II, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2016 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting galley proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. AbstractThe Western Antarctic Peninsula has recently undergone rapid climatic warming, with associated decreases in sea ice extent and duration, and increases in precipitation and glacial discharge to the ocean. These shifts in the freshwater budget can have significant consequences on the functioning of the regional ecosystem, feedbacks on regional climate, and sea-level rise. Here we use shelf-wide oxygen isotope data from cruises in four consecutive Januaries (2011 to 2014) to distinguish the freshwater input from sea ice melt separately from that due to meteoric sources (precipitation plus glacial discharge). Sea ice melt distributions varied from minima in 2011 of around 0 % up to maxima in 2014 of around 4-5 %. Meteoric water contribution to the marine environment is typically elevated inshore, due to local glacial discharge and orographic effects on precipitation, but this enhanced contribution was largely absent in January 2013 due to anomalously low 2 precipitation in the last quarter of 2012. Both sea ice melt and meteoric water changes are seen to be strongly influenced by changes in regional wind forcing associated with the Southern Annular Mode and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon, which also impact on net sea ice motion as inferred from the isotope data. A near-coastal time series of isotope data collected from Rothera Research Station reproduces well the temporal pattern of changes in sea ice melt, but less well the meteoric water changes, due to local glacial inputs and precipitation effects.3

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Section: Racmomentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing distributions of sea ice melt and meteoric water west of the Antarctic Peninsula

Meredith

Stammerjohn

Venables

et al. 2017

Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography

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“…Here we estimate SMB for the 2008-2015 period from Regional Atmospheric Climate Model version 2.3 (RACMO2.3) output at a horizontal resolution of 5.5 km for the Antarctic Peninsula (van Wessem et al, 2016) and 27 km elsewhere 295 (van Wessem et al, 2014). In RACMO2.3, SMB is calculated as the total precipitation (from snow and rain) minus total sublimation (directly from the surface and from drifting snow), wind-driven snow erosion, and meltwater runoff.…”

Section: Surface Mass Budget (Smb)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We estimate FAC using the firn densification model IMAU-FDM (Ligtenberg et al, 2011;Ligtenberg et al, 2014). IMAU-FDM simulates firn densification by dry compaction and through meltwater processes (percolation, retention and refreezing) and is forced at the surface by three-hourly resolution output of RACMO2.3 (van Wessem et al, 2016;van Wessem et al, 2014):…”

Section: Firn Air Content (Fac)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the determination of ice discharge we provide a novel approach to defining the cross-sectional area of ice flow (flux gate -Section 2.2) that greatly reduces uncertainties in estimates of ice discharge. By differencing estimates of ice discharge and basal melt rates (Van Liefferinge and Pattyn, 2013) from published 55 estimates of the surface mass balance (van Wessem et al, 2016;van Wessem et al, 2014) we are able to estimate the net mass balance of the ice sheet at the basin scale, revealing recent patters of ice sheet imbalance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Increased West Antarctic ice discharge and East Antarctic stability over the last seven years

Gardner¹,

Moholdt²,

Scambos³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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“…Surface mass balance and temperatures are obtained from Van Wessem et al (2014), based on the output of the regional atmospheric climate model RACMO2 for the period 1979-2011 and evaluated using 3234 in situ mass balance observations and icebalance velocities.…”

Section: Input Datasetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sea-level response to melting of Antarctic ice shelves on multi-centennial timescales with the fast Elementary Thermomechanical Ice Sheet model (f.ETISh v1.0)

Pattyn

2017

The Cryosphere

155

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Abstract. The magnitude of the Antarctic ice sheet's contribution to global sea-level rise is dominated by the potential of its marine sectors to become unstable and collapse as a response to ocean (and atmospheric) forcing. This paper presents Antarctic sea-level response to sudden atmospheric and oceanic forcings on multi-centennial timescales with the newly developed fast Elementary Thermomechanical Ice Sheet (f.ETISh) model. The f.ETISh model is a vertically integrated hybrid ice sheet-ice shelf model with vertically integrated thermomechanical coupling, making the model twodimensional. Its marine boundary is represented by two different flux conditions, coherent with power-law basal sliding and Coulomb basal friction. The model has been compared to existing benchmarks.Modelled Antarctic ice sheet response to forcing is dominated by sub-ice shelf melt and the sensitivity is highly dependent on basal conditions at the grounding line. Coulomb friction in the grounding-line transition zone leads to significantly higher mass loss in both West and East Antarctica on centennial timescales, leading to 1.5 m sea-level rise after 500 years for a limited melt scenario of 10 m a −1 under freely floating ice shelves, up to 6 m for a 50 m a −1 scenario. The higher sensitivity is attributed to higher ice fluxes at the grounding line due to vanishing effective pressure.Removing the ice shelves altogether results in a disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet and (partially) marine basins in East Antarctica. After 500 years, this leads to a 5 m and a 16 m sea-level rise for the power-law basal sliding and Coulomb friction conditions at the grounding line, respectively. The latter value agrees with simulations by DeConto and Pollard (2016) over a similar period (but with different forcing and including processes of hydrofracturing and cliff failure).The chosen parametrizations make model results largely independent of spatial resolution so that f.ETISh can potentially be integrated in large-scale Earth system models.

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Improved representation of East Antarctic surface mass balance in a regional atmospheric climate model

Cited by 248 publications

References 42 publications

Changing distributions of sea ice melt and meteoric water west of the Antarctic Peninsula

Changing distributions of sea ice melt and meteoric water west of the Antarctic Peninsula

Increased West Antarctic ice discharge and East Antarctic stability over the last seven years

Sea-level response to melting of Antarctic ice shelves on multi-centennial timescales with the fast Elementary Thermomechanical Ice Sheet model (f.ETISh v1.0)

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