Remapping of Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance anomalies for large ensemble sea-level change projections
<p>Future sea-level change projections with process-based stand-alone ice sheet models are typically driven with surface mass balance (SMB) forcing derived from climate models. In this work we address the problems arising from a mismatch of the modelled ice sheet geometry with the geometry use...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2020-06-01
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Series: | The Cryosphere |
Online Access: | https://www.the-cryosphere.net/14/1747/2020/tc-14-1747-2020.pdf |
Summary: | <p>Future sea-level change projections with process-based stand-alone ice sheet
models are typically driven with surface mass balance (SMB) forcing derived
from climate models. In this work we address the problems arising from a
mismatch of the modelled ice sheet geometry with the geometry used by the climate
model. We present a method for applying SMB forcing from climate models to a
wide range of Greenland ice sheet models with varying and temporally
evolving geometries. In order to achieve that, we translate a given SMB
anomaly field as a function of absolute location to a function of surface
elevation for 25 regional drainage basins, which can then be applied to
different modelled ice sheet geometries. The key feature of the approach is
the non-locality of this remapping process. The method reproduces the
original forcing data closely when remapped to the original geometry. When
remapped to different modelled geometries it produces a physically
meaningful forcing with smooth and continuous SMB anomalies across basin
divides. The method considerably reduces non-physical biases that would
arise by applying the SMB anomaly derived for the climate model geometry
directly to a large range of modelled ice sheet model geometries.</p> |
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ISSN: | 1994-0416 1994-0424 |