Rainfall on the Greenland Ice Sheet: Present-day climatology from a high-resolution non-hydrostatic Polar regional climate model

M. Niwano, J.E. Box, A. Wehrlé, B. Vandecrux, W.T. Colgan, J. Cappelen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

31 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Greenland ice sheet rainfall is expected to increase under a warming climate. Yet, there have been no active long-term in-situ rainfall records on the ice sheet due to observational difficulties. Here, we utilize the state-of-the-art 5 km polar non-hydrostatic regional climate model NHM-SMAP to evaluate the ice sheet’s rainfall over 40 years (1980–2019). The largest trends include a fourfold increase in annual rainfall for the northwestern ice sheet; 3.1 Gt year−1 or 12 mm m−2 year−1. September ice-sheet-wide rainfall amount and intensity increase by 7.5 Gt month−1 and 20.8 mm h−1 year−1. In the last two decades, the increasing September maximum hourly rainfall rate exceeded 50 mm h−1 six times. The increased surface water delivery has numerous implications, including for snow metamorphism and ice flow dynamics.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere2021GL092942
Number of pages11
JournalGeophysical Research Letters
Volume48
Issue number15
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2021

Keywords

  • Arctic
  • climate change
  • Greenland ice sheet
  • numerical modeling
  • polar regional climate model
  • rainfall

Programme Area

  • Programme Area 5: Nature and Climate

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