Changes in the firn structure of the western Greenland Ice Sheet caused by recent warming

de la Peña, S.; Howat, I. M.; Nienow, P. W.; van den Broeke, M. R.; Mosley-Thompson, E.; Price, S. F.; Mair, D.; Noël, B.; Sole, A. J.

doi:10.5194/tc-9-1203-2015

Changes in the firn structure of the western Greenland Ice Sheet caused by recent warming

Journal Article · Thu Jun 11 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · The Cryosphere (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-1203-2015· OSTI ID:1208660

de la Peña, S. ^[1]; Howat, I. M. ^[1]; Nienow, P. W. ^[2]; ^[3]; Mosley-Thompson, E. ^[1]; Price, S. F. ^[4]; Mair, D. ^[5]; Noël, B. ^[3]; Sole, A. J. ^[6]

The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
The University of Edinburgh, Edinburg (United Kingdom)
Utrecht University, Utrecht (The Netherlands)
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen (United Kingdom)
The University of Sheffield, Sheffield (United Kingdom)

Atmospheric warming over the Greenland Ice Sheet during the last 2 decades has increased the amount of surface meltwater production, resulting in the migration of melt and percolation regimes to higher altitudes and an increase in the amount of ice content from refrozen meltwater found in the firn above the superimposed ice zone. Here we present field and airborne radar observations of buried ice layers within the near-surface (0–20 m) firn in western Greenland, obtained from campaigns between 1998 and 2014. We find a sharp increase in firn-ice content in the form of thick widespread layers in the percolation zone, which decreases the capacity of the firn to store meltwater. The estimated total annual ice content retained in the near-surface firn in areas with positive surface mass balance west of the ice divide in Greenland reached a maximum of 74 ± 25 Gt in 2012, compared to the 1958–1999 average of 13 ± 2 Gt, while the percolation zone area more than doubled between 2003 and 2012. Increased melt and column densification resulted in surface lowering averaging –0.80 ± 0.39 m yr⁻¹ between 1800 and 2800 m in the accumulation zone of western Greenland. Since 2007, modeled annual melt and refreezing rates in the percolation zone at elevations below 2100 m surpass the annual snowfall from the previous year, implying that mass gain in the region is retained after melt in the form of refrozen meltwater. If current melt trends over high elevation regions continue, subsequent changes in firn structure will have implications for the hydrology of the ice sheet and related abrupt seasonal densification could become increasingly significant for altimetry-derived ice sheet mass balance estimates.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396

OSTI ID:: 1208660

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1224048

Report Number(s):: LA-UR--15-20081

Journal Information:: The Cryosphere (Online), Journal Name: The Cryosphere (Online) Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 9; ISSN 1994-0424

Publisher:: European Geosciences UnionCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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