MODELING ICE SHEET CLIMATIC MASS BALANCE AND FIRN PROCESSES
How will the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets respond to and feedback on future climate? What will be the impact on sea level rise? Warming during the previous three decades resulted in a decrease of the Greenland Ice Sheet’s climatic mass balance, which accounts for mass changes occurring near its surface. This decrease was, and continues to be, primarily driven by increased run-off from surface melt that is not being retained in the firn. Understanding this climatic mass balance requires a model to account for snow accumulation, grain size evolution, compaction, melt-water percolation and refreezing, which are a few of the physical processes we develop in the US Department of Energy Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) (https://climatemodeling.science.energy.gov/research-highlights/more-realistic-intermediate-depth-dry-firn-densification-e3sm). Our research helps determine whether or not melting ice will accelerate and the role ice sheet surface processes will have in future sea level rise.
“Our developments in E3SM combine both seasonal snow and firn processes to advance broader efforts toward simulating ice sheet evolution and sea level rise in Earth system models.”
Figure 1. “Depth-integrated firn air content in the upper 10 m (a–c) and in the upper 60 m (d–f) for the vK17 (a and d), vK17+ (b and e), and A10 (c and f) Energy Exascale Earth System Model’s land model experiments”
Contact
164 Rowland Hall
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-4675