 |
| Titel |
Irreversible melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet |
| VerfasserIn |
A. Robinson, M. Perrette, R. Calov, A. Ganopolski |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2012
|
| Medientyp |
Artikel
|
| Sprache |
Englisch
|
| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 14 (2012) |
| Datensatznummer |
250063380
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Zusammenfassung |
| Increasing temperatures have recently increased both the melt area and mass loss
of the Greenland Ice Sheet. With more anthropogenic CO2 emissions, this trend
will continue. Even if emissions are reduced in the future, global temperatures
will likely remain high for millennia, which can lead to irreversible melting of the
Greenland Ice Sheet. To assess this problem, we have performed long time-scale
simulations of the Greenland Ice Sheet using the Earth system model of intermediate
complexity CLIMBER-2 fully coupled to the regional climate-ice sheet model
REMBO-SICOPOLIS. The model is forced by various future CO2 emissions scenarios that
peak in the next centuries. The temperature anomalies driving the high-resolution
regional climate and ice sheet model thus include both the temperature increase over
the next centuries and the subsequent decline over the next millennia. Freshwater
forcing to the North Atlantic and any reduction in area of the Greenland Ice Sheet
can feedback into the global climate. Using an ensemble of model versions with
perturbed physical parameters that control both the climate sensitivity and sensitivity
of the ice sheet to climate change, we investigate the reaction of the Greenland
Ice Sheet to the long-term global warming. We consider the potential thresholds
in cumulative carbon emissions that lead to disappearance or significant melting
of the Greenland ice sheet. Through these simulations we are able to calculate a
probability of decline for each scenario as well as estimate the time scale of mass loss. |
|
|
|
|
|
|