Applying the energy- and water balance model for incorporation of the cryospheric component into a climate model. Part I. Description of the model and computed climatic fields of surface air temperature and precipitation rate

Abstract

To elaborate a complete model of the Earth system, it is necessary to include the model of dynamics of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets into the General Circulation Model (GCM). The problem is that spatial and temporal scales of ice sheet dynamics, on one hand, and the dynamics of atmosphere and the ocean, on the other hand, differ considerably. In order to unite them in one model, implementation of one or another downscaling procedure is required. For this purpose we elaborated an energy- and water balance model of the Greenland ice sheet (EWBM-G) serving as a buffer between the GCM INMCM and the ice sheet model. EWBM-G describes heat and water vapor diffusion in a limited domain with the boundary conditions transferred from the INMCM. This paper describes the model and set-up of the numerical experiments aiming at calculation surface air temperature and annual precipi-tation amount in Greenland in accordance with the simulated pre-industrial climate. The results of calculations are compared with observations and reconstructions.