Abstract
Abstract. We have studied the evolution of the Greenland ice sheet under a range of constant climates typical of those projected for the end of the present century using a dynamical ice sheet model (Glimmer) coupled to an atmosphere general circulation model (FAMOUS–ice AGCM). The ice sheet surface mass balance (SMB) is simulated within the AGCM by a multilayer snow scheme from snowfall and surface energy fluxes, including refreezing and dependence on altitude within AGCM grid boxes. Over millennia under any warmer climate, the ice sheet reaches a new steady state, whose mass is correlated with the magnitude of global climate change imposed. If a climate that gives the recently observed SMB were maintained, global-mean sea level rise (GMSLR) would reach 0.5–2.5 m. For any global warming exceeding 3 K, the contribution to GMSLR exceeds 5 m. For the largest global warming considered (about +5 K), the rate of GMSLR is initially 2.7 mm yr−1, and eventually only a small ice cap endures, resulting in over 7 m of GMSLR. Our analysis gives a qualitatively different impression from previous work in that we do not find a sharp threshold warming that divides scenarios in which the ice sheet suffers little reduction from those in which it is mostly lost. The final steady state is achieved by withdrawal from the coast in some places and a tendency for increasing SMB due to enhancement of cloudiness and snowfall over the remaining ice sheet by the effects of topographic change on atmospheric circulation, outweighing the tendency for decreasing SMB from the reduction in surface altitude. If late 20th-century climate is restored after the ice sheet mass has fallen below a threshold of about 4 m of sea level equivalent, it will not regrow to its present extent because the snowfall in the northern part of the island is reduced once the ice sheet retreats from there. In that case, about 2 m of GMSLR would become irreversible. In order to avoid this outcome, anthropogenic climate change must be reversed before the ice sheet has declined to the threshold mass, which would be reached in about 600 years at the highest rate of mass loss within the likely range of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Highlights
1.1 Mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet in recent decadesDuring 1961–1990 the Greenland ice sheet had a roughly constant mass, in which snowfall was balanced by the sum of surface ablation and solid discharge of ice into the sea
We have studied the multimillennial future evolution of the Greenland ice sheet for various magnitudes of anthropogenic climate change in experiments with constant climates using an atmosphere general circulation model (AGCM) interactively coupled to a dynamic ice sheet model
For adequate resolution of gradients, especially at the margins of the ice sheet, the surface mass balance is simulated by the AGCM as a function of elevation within its grid boxes
Summary
During 1961–1990 the Greenland ice sheet had a roughly constant mass, in which snowfall was balanced by the sum of surface ablation (meaning all processes of mass loss, predominantly liquid run-off due to melting) and solid discharge of ice into the sea (forming icebergs). Over the last 30 years both ablation and discharge have increased significantly, while snowfall has not (Shepherd et al, 2012; van den Broeke et al, 2016; Bamber et al, 2018; Mouginot et al, 2019). The mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet of 239 ± 20 Gt yr−1 (in 2012–2017; Shepherd et al, 2020), or about 0.7 mm yr−1 sea level equivalent (SLE), accounts for about 20 % of global-mean sea level rise (GMSLR), most of which is due to thermal expansion of seawater (i.e. thermosteric) or mass loss from glaciers.
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