Articles | Volume 12, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1643-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1643-2018
Brief communication
 | 
08 May 2018
Brief communication |  | 08 May 2018

Brief communication: Improved simulation of the present-day Greenland firn layer (1960–2016)

Stefan R. M. Ligtenberg, Peter Kuipers Munneke, Brice P. Y. Noël, and Michiel R. van den Broeke

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Revised manuscript accepted for TC
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Cited articles

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Short summary
Firn is the transitional product between fresh snow and glacier ice, and a 10-100 m thick layer covers the Greenland ice sheet. It has the capacity to store meltwater and thereby mitigate runoff to the ocean. Using a model and improved atmospheric forcing, we simulate firn density and temperature that agrees well with observations from firn cores. Especially in the regions with substantial melt, and therefore the most sensitive to a warming climate, the results improved significantly.