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Mattingly KS, Turton JV, Wille JD, Noël B, Fettweis X, Rennermalm ÅK, Mote TL. Increasing extreme melt in northeast Greenland linked to foehn winds and atmospheric rivers. Nat Commun 2023; 14:1743. [PMID: 36990994 PMCID: PMC10060376 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37434-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2022] [Accepted: 03/15/2023] [Indexed: 03/30/2023] Open
Abstract
The Greenland Ice Sheet has been losing mass at an increased rate in recent decades. In northeast Greenland, increasing surface melt has accompanied speed-ups in the outlet glaciers of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream, which contain over one meter of sea level rise potential. Here we show that the most intense northeast Greenland melt events are driven by atmospheric rivers (ARs) affecting northwest Greenland that induce foehn winds in the northeast. Near low-elevation outlet glaciers, 80-100% of extreme (> 99th percentile) melt occurs during foehn conditions and 50-75% during ARs. These events have become more frequent during the twenty-first century, with 5-10% of total northeast Greenland melt in several recent summers occurring during the ~1% of times with strong AR and foehn conditions. We conclude that the combined AR-foehn influence on northeast Greenland extreme melt will likely continue to grow as regional atmospheric moisture content increases with climate warming.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kyle S Mattingly
- Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
- Institute of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
| | - Jenny V Turton
- Climate System Research Group, Institute of Geography, Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen, Germany
- Arctic Frontiers AS, Tromsø, Norway
| | - Jonathan D Wille
- Institut des Géosciences de l'Environnement, CNRS/UGA/IRD/G-INP, Saint Martin d'Hères, France
- Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Brice Noël
- Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
- Department of Geography, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
| | - Xavier Fettweis
- Department of Geography, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
| | - Åsa K Rennermalm
- Department of Geography, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ, USA
| | - Thomas L Mote
- Department of Geography, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
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