Abstract
Abstract. The northeast region of Greenland is of growing interest due to changes taking place on the large marine-terminating glaciers which drain the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream. Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden, or 79∘ N Glacier, is one of these that is currently experiencing accelerated thinning, retreat, and enhanced surface melt. Understanding both the influence of atmospheric processes on the glacier and feedbacks from changing surface conditions is crucial for our understanding of present stability and future change. However, relatively few studies have focused on the atmospheric processes in this region, and even fewer have used high-resolution modelling as a tool to address these research questions. Here we present a high-spatial-resolution (1 km) and high-temporal-resolution (up to hourly) atmospheric modelling dataset, NEGIS_WRF, for the 79∘ N and northeast Greenland region from 2014 to 2018 and an evaluation of the model's success at representing daily near-surface meteorology when compared with automatic weather station records. The dataset (Turton et al., 2019b: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/53E6Z) is now available for a wide variety of applications in the atmospheric, hydrological, and oceanic sciences in the study region.
Highlights
The surface mass balance of a glacier is largely controlled by regional climate through varying mass gains and losses in the ablation and accumulation zones, respectively
The large amount of mass lost from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) within the last few decades has largely been located around the coast of Greenland, due to the thinning and retreat of marine-terminating glaciers (Howat and Eddy, 2011) and the surface mass loss in the ablation zone due to enhanced melting and runoff (Rignot et al, 2015; van den Broeke et al, 2017)
Northeast Greenland Ice Steam (NEGIS) extends into the interior of the Greenland ice sheet by 600 km, and three marine-terminating glaciers connect the NEGIS with the ocean
Summary
The surface mass balance of a glacier is largely controlled by regional climate through varying mass gains and losses in the ablation and accumulation zones, respectively. There are a number of atmospheric models that have been applied to the Greenland region; these are often run at a resolution that is too coarse to resolve 79◦ N Glacier, especially its floating tongue, which can be missing in many simulations. These data are usually statistically downscaled to calculate the surface mass balance of the glacier, using a digital elevation model and a shape file of the glacier. We present an evaluation of the ability of NEGIS_WRF to represent key near-surface meteorological and radiative conditions, to demonstrate the applicability of the dataset for these and other studies in the atmospheric, cryospheric, and oceanic fields
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