Seasonal and interannual variability in freshwater sources for Greenland's fjords

Vries, Anneke L.; van de Berg, Willem Jan; Noël, Brice; Meire, Lorenz; van den Broeke, Michiel R.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3897-2025

Articles | Volume 19, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3897-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Northern hydrology in transition – impacts of a changing...

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3897-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 9

Research article

|

16 Sep 2025

Research article |

| 16 Sep 2025

Seasonal and interannual variability in freshwater sources for Greenland's fjords

Anneke L. Vries, Willem Jan van de Berg, Brice Noël, Lorenz Meire, and Michiel R. van den Broeke

Data sets

Data supporting: "Seasonal and interannual variability of freshwater sources for Greenland's fjords" submitted to The Cryosphere special issue "Northern hydrology in transition – impacts of a changing cryosphere on water resources, ecosystems, and humans" on November 29, 2024 by Anneke Vries et al. Anneke Vries https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15013761

Greenland Ice Sheet solid ice discharge from 1986 through last month K. D. Mankoff https://doi.org/10.22008/promice/data/ice_discharge

Data from: Dynamic ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet driven by sustained glacier retreat M. King and I. Howat https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.qrfj6q5cb

Arctic regional reanalysis on single levels from 1991 to present H. Schyberg et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.713858f6

Model code and software

QGIS Geographic Information System QGIS Development Team https://www.qgis.org

Short summary

Freshwater flows into Greenland's fjords from various sources. Solid ice discharge (e.g. calving icebergs) dominates freshwater input in the southeast and northwest. In contrast, in the southwest, runoff from the ice sheet and tundra are the most significant. Seasonal data revealed that fjord precipitation and tundra runoff contribute up to 11 % and 35 % of the monthly freshwater input, respectively. Our results provide valuable input for ocean models and for researchers studying fjord ecosystems.