Abstract
Abstract. Snowfall is the major source of mass for the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) but the spatial and temporal variability of snowfall and the connections between snowfall and mass balance have so far been inadequately quantified. By characterizing local atmospheric circulation and utilizing CloudSat spaceborne radar observations of snowfall, we provide a detailed spatial analysis of snowfall variability and its relationship to Greenland mass balance, presenting first-of-their-kind maps of daily spatial variability in snowfall from observations across Greenland. For identified regional atmospheric circulation patterns, we show that the spatial distribution and net mass input of snowfall vary significantly with the position and strength of surface cyclones. Cyclones west of Greenland driving southerly flow contribute significantly more snowfall than any other circulation regime, with each daily occurrence of the most extreme southerly circulation pattern contributing an average of 1.66 Gt of snow to the Greenland ice sheet. While cyclones east of Greenland, patterns with the least snowfall, contribute as little as 0.58 Gt each day. Above 2 km on the ice sheet where snowfall is inconsistent, extreme southerly patterns are the most significant mass contributors, with up to 1.20 Gt of snowfall above this elevation. This analysis demonstrates that snowfall over the interior of Greenland varies by up to a factor of 5 depending on regional circulation conditions. Using independent observations of mass changes made by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), we verify that the largest mass increases are tied to the southerly regime with cyclones west of Greenland. For occurrences of the strongest southerly pattern, GRACE indicates a net mass increase of 1.29 Gt in the ice sheet accumulation zone (above 2 km elevation) compared to the 1.20 Gt of snowfall observed by CloudSat. This overall agreement suggests that the analytical approach presented here can be used to directly quantify snowfall mass contributions and their most significant drivers spatially across the GrIS. While previous research has implicated this same southerly regime in ablation processes during summer, this paper shows that ablation mass loss in this circulation regime is nearly an order of magnitude larger than the mass gain from associated snowfall. For daily occurrences of the southerly circulation regime, a mass loss of approximately 11 Gt is observed across the ice sheet despite snowfall mass input exceeding 1 Gt. By analyzing the spatial variability of snowfall and mass changes, this research provides new insight into connections between regional atmospheric circulation and GrIS mass balance.
Highlights
The Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) is currently the leading cause of global sea level rise, contributing an average increase of 0.47 mm each year in the years since 2000 (Shepherd et al, 2012; Van Den Broeke et al, 2016)
This analysis uses the aggregated mean of a large sample of observations: the mean snowfall rate is sampled from many CloudSat profiles across a 1 × 1◦ pixel which is averaged for the locally clustered region to create the seasonal background variability, which is in turn used to calculate the anomaly for the average of all snowfall observations for a given circulation pattern
By combining CloudSat snowfall observations together with a classification of atmospheric circulation, this paper constructs a spatial relationship between snowfall and the mass balance of the GrIS on daily timescales
Summary
The Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) is currently the leading cause of global sea level rise, contributing an average increase of 0.47 mm each year in the years since 2000 (Shepherd et al, 2012; Van Den Broeke et al, 2016). Because of this contribution to sea level rise, GrIS mass balance plays an important role in the Earth-climate system. Gallagher et al.: Relating snowfall observations to Greenland ice sheet mass changes on inter-annual variability of GrIS mass balance (van den Broeke et al, 2009). Because measurements are difficult to obtain, snowfall over the GrIS is poorly constrained, and snowfall is difficult to model accurately, our understanding of snowfall’s contribution to mass balance remains limited and uncertain (Noël et al, 2015; Vernon et al, 2013)
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