Remapping of Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance anomalies for large ensemble sea-level change projections
Goelzer, H.; Noël, B.P.Y.; Edwards, T.L.; Fettweis, X.; Gregory, J.M.; Lipscomb, W.H.; van de Wal, R.S.W.; van den Broeke, M.R. (2020). Remapping of Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance anomalies for large ensemble sea-level change projections. Cryosphere 14(6): 1747-1762. https://hdl.handle.net/10.5194/tc-14-1747-2020
In: The Cryosphere. Copernicus: Göttingen. ISSN 1994-0416; e-ISSN 1994-0424
Future sea-level change projections with process-based stand-alone ice sheet models are typically driven with surface mass balance (SMB) forcing derived from climate models. In this work we address the problems arising from a mismatch of the modelled ice sheet geometry with the geometry used by the climate model. We present a method for applying SMB forcing from climate models to a wide range of Greenland ice sheet models with varying and temporally evolving geometries. In order to achieve that, we translate a given SMB anomaly field as a function of absolute location to a function of surface elevation for 25 regional drainage basins, which can then be applied to different modelled ice sheet geometries. The key feature of the approach is the non-locality of this remapping process. The method reproduces the original forcing data closely when remapped to the original geometry. When remapped to different modelled geometries it produces a physically meaningful forcing with smooth and continuous SMB anomalies across basin divides. The method considerably reduces non-physical biases that would arise by applying the SMB anomaly derived for the climate model geometry directly to a large range of modelled ice sheet model geometries.
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