English
 
Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Journal Article

The future sea-level contribution of the Greenland ice sheet: a multi-model ensemble study of ISMIP6

Authors

Goelzer,  Heiko
External Organizations;

Nowicki,  Sophie
External Organizations;

Payne,  Anthony
External Organizations;

Larour,  Eric
External Organizations;

Seroussi,  Helene
External Organizations;

Lipscomb,  William H.
External Organizations;

Gregory,  Jonathan
External Organizations;

Abe-Ouchi,  Ayako
External Organizations;

Shepherd,  Andrew
External Organizations;

Simon,  Erika
External Organizations;

Agosta,  Cécile
External Organizations;

Alexander,  Patrick
External Organizations;

Aschwanden,  Andy
External Organizations;

Barthel,  Alice
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/Reinhard.Calov

Calov,  Reinhard
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Chambers,  Christopher
External Organizations;

Choi,  Youngmin
External Organizations;

Cuzzone,  Joshua
External Organizations;

Dumas,  Christophe
External Organizations;

Edwards,  Tamsin
External Organizations;

Felikson,  Denis
External Organizations;

Fettweis,  Xavier
External Organizations;

Golledge,  Nicholas R.
External Organizations;

Greve,  Ralf
External Organizations;

Humbert,  Angelika
External Organizations;

Huybrechts,  Philippe
External Organizations;

Le clec'h,  Sebastien
External Organizations;

Lee,  Victoria
External Organizations;

Leguy,  Gunter
External Organizations;

Little,  Chris
External Organizations;

Lowry,  Daniel P.
External Organizations;

Morlighem,  Mathieu
External Organizations;

Nias,  Isabel
External Organizations;

Quiquet,  Aurelien
External Organizations;

Rückamp,  Martin
External Organizations;

Schlegel,  Nicole-Jeanne
External Organizations;

Slater,  Donald A.
External Organizations;

Smith,  Robin S.
External Organizations;

Straneo,  Fiamma
External Organizations;

Tarasov,  Lev
External Organizations;

van de Wal,  Roderik
External Organizations;

van den Broeke,  Michiel
External Organizations;

External Ressource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (public)

goelzer_etal-2020.pdf
(Publisher version), 6MB

Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Goelzer, H., Nowicki, S., Payne, A., Larour, E., Seroussi, H., Lipscomb, W. H., Gregory, J., Abe-Ouchi, A., Shepherd, A., Simon, E., Agosta, C., Alexander, P., Aschwanden, A., Barthel, A., Calov, R., Chambers, C., Choi, Y., Cuzzone, J., Dumas, C., Edwards, T., Felikson, D., Fettweis, X., Golledge, N. R., Greve, R., Humbert, A., Huybrechts, P., Le clec'h, S., Lee, V., Leguy, G., Little, C., Lowry, D. P., Morlighem, M., Nias, I., Quiquet, A., Rückamp, M., Schlegel, N.-J., Slater, D. A., Smith, R. S., Straneo, F., Tarasov, L., van de Wal, R., van den Broeke, M. (2020): The future sea-level contribution of the Greenland ice sheet: a multi-model ensemble study of ISMIP6. - The Cryosphere, 14, 9, 3071-3096.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-3071-2020


Cite as: https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_24624
Abstract
The Greenland ice sheet is one of the largest contributors to global mean sea-level rise today and is expected to continue to lose mass as the Arctic continues to warm. The two predominant mass loss mechanisms are increased surface meltwater run-off and mass loss associated with the retreat of marine-terminating outlet glaciers. In this paper we use a large ensemble of Greenland ice sheet models forced by output from a representative subset of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) global climate models to project ice sheet changes and sea-level rise contributions over the 21st century. The simulations are part of the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP6 (ISMIP6). We estimate the sea-level contribution together with uncertainties due to future climate forcing, ice sheet model formulations and ocean forcing for the two greenhouse gas concentration scenarios RCP8.5 and RCP2.6. The results indicate that the Greenland ice sheet will continue to lose mass in both scenarios until 2100, with contributions of 90±50 and 32±17 mm to sea-level rise for RCP8.5 and RCP2.6, respectively. The largest mass loss is expected from the south-west of Greenland, which is governed by surface mass balance changes, continuing what is already observed today. Because the contributions are calculated against an unforced control experiment, these numbers do not include any committed mass loss, i.e. mass loss that would occur over the coming century if the climate forcing remained constant. Under RCP8.5 forcing, ice sheet model uncertainty explains an ensemble spread of 40 mm, while climate model uncertainty and ocean forcing uncertainty account for a spread of 36 and 19 mm, respectively. Apart from those formally derived uncertainty ranges, the largest gap in our knowledge is about the physical understanding and implementation of the calving process, i.e. the interaction of the ice sheet with the ocean.