Identification

Title

Greenland surface mass balance as simulated by the Community Earth System Model. Part I: Model evaluation and 1850-2005 results

Abstract

The modeling of the surface mass balance (SMB) of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) requires high-resolution models in order to capture the observed large gradients in the steep marginal areas. Until now, global climate models have not been considered suitable to model ice sheet SMB owing to model biases and insufficient resolution. This study analyzes the GIS SMB simulated for the period 1850-2005 by the Community Earth System Model (CESM), which includes a new ice sheet component with multiple elevation classes for SMB calculations. The model is evaluated against observational data and output from the regional model Regional Atmospheric Climate Model version 2 (RACMO2). Because of a lack of major climate biases, a sophisticated calculation of snow processes (including surface albedo evolution) and an adequate downscaling technique, CESM is able to realistically simulate GIS surface climate and SMB. CESM SMB agrees reasonably well with in situ data from 475 locations (r = 0.80) and output from RACMO2 (r = 0.79). The simulated mean SMB for 1960–2005 is 359 ± 120 Gt yr⁻¹ in the range of estimates from regional climate models. The simulated seasonal mass variability is comparable with mass observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), with synchronous annual maximum (May) and minimum (August–September) and similar amplitudes of the seasonal cycle. CESM is able to simulate the bands of precipitation maxima along the southeast and northwest margins, but absolute precipitation rates are underestimated along the southeastern margin and overestimated in the high interior. The model correctly simulates the major ablation areas. Total refreezing represents 35% of the available liquid water (the sum of rain and melt).

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7fn173b

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

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South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2013-10-15T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

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Conformity

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Use constraints

Copyright 2013 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact