Increasing surface runoff from Greenland’s firn areas

Andrew J. Tedstone () and Horst Machguth
Additional contact information
Andrew J. Tedstone: University of Fribourg
Horst Machguth: University of Fribourg

Nature Climate Change, 2022, vol. 12, issue 7, 672-676

Abstract: Abstract At high elevations of ice sheets, melting snow generally percolates and refreezes, so does not contribute to the shrinking of the ice sheet. Here, we systematically map the runoff area of the Greenland ice sheet using surface rivers visible on satellite imagery. Between 1985 and 2020, the maximum runoff elevation rose by 58–329 metres, expanding the runoff area by 29% (–8%/+6%). Excess melt beyond the refreezing capacity of pores in snowfall has created near-impermeable ice slabs that sustain surface runoff even in cooler summers. We show that two surface mass balance models over-estimate the runoff area by 16–30%. Once restricted to our observed areas, they indicate that 5–10% of recent runoff probably comes from the expanded runoff area. Runoff from higher elevations is sensitive to projected warming as further increases in the runoff limit will increase the runoff area disproportionately.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01371-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:12:y:2022:i:7:d:10.1038_s41558-022-01371-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-022-01371-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().