Discrepancies between observations and climate models of large-scale wind-driven Greenland melt influence sea-level rise projections

Dániel Topál (), Qinghua Ding (), Thomas J. Ballinger (), Edward Hanna, Xavier Fettweis, Zhe Li and Ildikó Pieczka
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Dániel Topál: Institute for Geological and Geochemical Research, Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, MTA-Centre for Excellence, ELKH
Qinghua Ding: University of California-Santa Barbara
Thomas J. Ballinger: University of Alaska Fairbanks
Edward Hanna: University of Lincoln
Xavier Fettweis: University of Liège
Zhe Li: University of California-Santa Barbara
Ildikó Pieczka: ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Department of Meteorology

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract While climate models project that Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) melt will continue to accelerate with climate change, models exhibit limitations in capturing observed connections between GrIS melt and changes in high-latitude atmospheric circulation. Here we impose observed Arctic winds in a fully-coupled climate model with fixed anthropogenic forcing to quantify the influence of the rotational component of large-scale atmospheric circulation variability over the Arctic on the temperature field and the surface mass/energy balances through adiabatic processes. We show that recent changes involving mid-to-upper-tropospheric anticyclonic wind anomalies – linked with tropical forcing – explain half of the observed Greenland surface warming and ice loss acceleration since 1990, suggesting a pathway for large-scale winds to potentially enhance sea-level rise by ~0.2 mm/year per decade. We further reveal fingerprints of this observed teleconnection in paleo-reanalyses spanning the past 400 years, which heightens concern about model limitations to capture wind-driven adiabatic processes associated with GrIS melt.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34414-2

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