EGU22-11895, updated on 10 Jan 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-11895
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Atmospheric drivers of Greenland ice sheet surface energy and mass balance changes as a function of elevation and circulation patterns

Tiago Silva1, Jakob Abermann1, Brice Noël2, Sonika Shahi1, Jorrit van der Schot1, and Wolfgang Schöner1
Tiago Silva et al.
  • 1University of Graz, Institute of Geography and Regional Sciences, Department of Geography and Regional Sciences, Graz, Austria (tiago.ferreira-da-silva@uni-graz.at)
  • 2University of Utrecht, Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Utrecht, Netherlands

Recent Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) surface mass loss has been attributed to the expansion of the bare ice area following the upward migration of the snowline along with persistent blocking systems. Given the temporal fluctuations and spatial heterogeneity of the ablation zone, the local impacts of atmospheric drivers on the GrIS surface energy and mass balance at different elevations and under various atmospheric circulation patterns remain poorly known.

Based on the 1959-2020 period, we present a new indicator of the North Atlantic influence over Greenland (NAG) as the combination of the North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAO), the Greenland Blocking Index (GBI) and the vertically integrated water vapor over the GrIS. We explore the NAG monthly frequency and the inter-annual evolution along with large-scale spatial anomalies. With the support of a high-resolution regional climate model (RACMO2.3p2), we investigate the influence of spatio-temporal NAG fluctuations on atmospheric drivers, surface energy and mass balance fluxes, that triggered the expansion of the ablation zone to higher elevations. Finally, we assess NAG performance by comparing its results with NAO and GBI alone.

How to cite: Silva, T., Abermann, J., Noël, B., Shahi, S., van der Schot, J., and Schöner, W.: Atmospheric drivers of Greenland ice sheet surface energy and mass balance changes as a function of elevation and circulation patterns, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-11895, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-11895, 2022.

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