References

The Cryosphere

1994-0424

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/tc-6-35-2012

The impact of a seasonally ice free Arctic Ocean on the temperature, precipitation and surface mass balance of Svalbard

Day

J. J.

¹ ² Bamber

J. L.

¹ Valdes

P. J.

¹ Kohler

School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

RIGC/JAMSTEC, Yokohama Institute for Earth Sciences, Yokohama, Japan

Norsk Polarinstitutt, Polar Environment Centre, Tromsø, Norway

10 01 2012

6 1 35 50

2012

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This article is available from https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/6/35/2012/tc-6-35-2012.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/6/35/2012/tc-6-35-2012.pdf

The observed decline in summer sea ice extent since the 1970s is predicted to continue until the Arctic Ocean is seasonally ice free during the 21st Century. This will lead to a much perturbed Arctic climate with large changes in ocean surface energy flux. Svalbard, located on the present day sea ice edge, contains many low lying ice caps and glaciers and is expected to experience rapid warming over the 21st Century. The total sea level rise if all the land ice on Svalbard were to melt completely is 0.02 m. <br></br> The purpose of this study is to quantify the impact of climate change on Svalbard's surface mass balance (SMB) and to determine, in particular, what proportion of the projected changes in precipitation and SMB are a result of changes to the Arctic sea ice cover. To investigate this a regional climate model was forced with monthly mean climatologies of sea surface temperature (SST) and sea ice concentration for the periods 1961–1990 and 2061–2090 under two emission scenarios. In a novel forcing experiment, 20th Century SSTs and 21st Century sea ice were used to force one simulation to investigate the role of sea ice forcing. This experiment results in a 3.5 m water equivalent increase in Svalbard's SMB compared to the present day. This is because over 50 % of the projected increase in winter precipitation over Svalbard under the A1B emissions scenario is due to an increase in lower atmosphere moisture content associated with evaporation from the ice free ocean. These results indicate that increases in precipitation due to sea ice decline may act to moderate mass loss from Svalbard's glaciers due to future Arctic warming.

References 1

Arendt, A. A., Echelmeyer, K. A., Harrison, W. D., Lingle, C. S., and Valentine, V. B.: Rapid Wastage of Alaskan Glaciers and their Contribution to Rising Sea Level, Science, 297, 382–386, 2002.

Bamber, J., Krabill, W., Raper, V., and Dowdeswell, J.: Anomalous recent growth of part of a large Arctic ice cap: Austfonna, Svalbard, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L12402, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2004GL019667">https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GL019667</a>, 2004.

Banta, J. R. and McConnell, J. R.: Annual accumulation over recent centuries at four sites in central Greenland, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 112, D10114, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2006JD007887">https://doi.org/10.1029/2006JD007887</a>, 2007.

Benestad, R. E., Førland, E. J., and Hanssen-Bauer, I.: Empirically downscaled temperature scenarios for Svalbard, Atmos. Sci. Lett., 3, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/asle.2002.0050">https://doi.org/10.1006/asle.2002.0050</a>, 2002.

Benestad, R. E., Hanssen-Bauer, I., Torill, E. S., and Førland, E. J.: Associations between the sea-ice and the local climate on Svalbard, 7 klima, met.no, 2002.

Beine, H. J, Argentini, S., Maurizi, A., Mastrantonio, G., and Viola, A.: The local wind field at Ny-Alesund and the Zeppelin mountain at Svalbard, Meteorol. Atmos. Phys., 78, 107–113, 1–2, 2001.

Boé, J. L., Hall, A., and Qu, X.: September sea-ice cover in the Arctic Ocean projected to vanish by 2100, Nat. Geosci., 2, 341–343, 2009.

Christensen, O. B., Christensen, J. H., Machenhauer, B., and Botzet, M.: Very high-resolution regional climate simulations over Scandinavia – Present climate, J. Climate, 11, 3204–3229, 1998.

Christensen, J. H., Hewitson, B., Busuioc, A., Chen, A., Gao, X., Held, I., Jones, R., Kolli, R. K., Kwon, W.-T., Laprise, R., Magaña, V. Rueda, Mearns, L.,Menéndez, C. G., Räisänen, J., Rinke, A., Sarr, A., and Whetton, P.: Regional Climate Projections, in: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K. B., Tignor, M., and Miller, H. L., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 2007.

Cox, P. M., Betts, R. A., Bunton, C. B., Essery, R. L. H., Rowntree, P. R., and Smith, J.: The impact of new land surface physics on the GCM simulation of climate and climate sensitivity, Clim. Dynam., 15, 183–203, 1999.

Denis, B., Laprise, R., Caya, D., and Cote, J.: Downscaling ability of one-way nested regional climate models: the Big-Brother Experiment, Clim. Dynam., 18, 627–646, 2002.

Deser, C., Tomas, R., Alexander, M., and Lawrence, D.: The Seasonal Atmospheric Response to Projected Arctic Sea Ice Loss in the Late Twenty-First Century, J. Climate, 23, 333–351, 2010.

Divine, D. V. and Dick, C.: Historical variability of sea ice edge position in the Nordic Seas, J. Geophys. Res.-Ocean, 111, C01001, 14 pp., <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2004JC002851">https://doi.org/10.1029/2004JC002851</a>, 2006.

Divine, D., Isaksson, E., Martma, T., Meijer, H. A. J., Moore, J., Pohjola, V., van de Wal, R. S. W., and Godtliebsen, F.: Thousand years of winter surface air temperature variations in Svalbard and northern Norway reconstructed from ice-core data, Polar Res., 30, 7379, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/polar.v30i0.7379">https://doi.org/10.3402/polar.v30i0.7379</a>, 2011.

Divine, D. V., Sjolte, J., Isaksson, E., Meijer, H. A. J., van de Wal, R. S. W., Martma, T., Pohjola, V., Sturm, C., and Godtliebsen, F.: Modelling the regional climate and isotopic composition of Svalbard precipitation using REMOiso: a comparison with available GNIP and ice core data, Hydrol. Process., 25, 3748-�3759, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hyp.8100">https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.8100</a>, 2011.

Dyurgerov, M., Bring, A., and Destouni, G.: Integrated assessment of changes in freshwater inflow to the Arctic Ocean, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 115, D12116, 9 pp., <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2009JD013060">https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JD013060</a>, 2010.

Feser, F.: Enhanced Detectability of Added Value in Limited-Area Model Results Separated into Different Spatial Scales, Mon. Weather Rev., 134, 2180–2190, https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/MWR3183.1, 2006.

Førland, E. J. and Hanssen-Bauer, I.: Climate variations and implications for precipitation types in the Norwegian Arctic, 24/02 klima, met.no, 2003.

Førland, E. J., Hanssen-Bauer, I. and Nordli, P. Ø.: Climate statistics and longterm series of temperatures and precipitation at Svalbard and Jan Mayen, DNMI 21/97 klima, met.no, 1997.

Førland, E. J., Benestad, R. E., Flatøy, F., Hanssen-Bauer, I., Haugen, J. E., Isaksen, K., Sorteberg, A., and Ådlaandsvic, B.: Climate development in North Norway and the Svalbard region during 1900–2100, Norwegian Polar Institute, Report series no. 128, 44 pp., 2009.

Hagen, J. O., Liestøl, O., Roland, E., and Jorgensen, T.: Glacier Atlas of Svalbard an Jan Mayan, Norsk Polarinstitutt Meddelelser, 129, 141 pp., 1993.

Hagen, J. O., Melvold, K., Pinglot, F., and Dowdeswell, J. A.: On the Net Mass Balance of the Glaciers and Ice Caps in Svalbard, Arct. Antarct. Alp. Res., 35, 2, 264–270, 2003.

Hanssen-Bauer, I. and Førland, E.: Verification and analysis of a climate simulation of temperature and pressure fields over Norway and Svalbard, Clim. Res., 16, 225–235, 2001.

%Hisdal, V.: Geography of Svalbard, Polar Håndbok Nr. 2, Norsk %Polarinstitutt, Oslo, 1976.

Hodson, A. J., Kohler, J., Brinkhaus, M., and Wynn, P.: Multi-year water and surface energy budget of a high-latitude polythermal glacier: evidence for overwinter water storage in a dynamic subglacial reservoir, Ann. Glaciol., 42, 42–46, 2005.

Isaksson, E., Divine, D., Kohler, J., Martma, T., Pohjola, V., Motoyama, H., and Watanabe, O.: Climate oscillations as recorded in Svalbard ice core delta O-18 records between AD 1200 and 1997, Geogr. Ann. A., 87A, 203–214, 2005{a}.

Isaksson, E., Kohler, J., Pohjola, V., Moore, J., Igarashi, M., Karlf, L., Martma, T., Meijer, H., Motoyama, H., Vaikme, R., and van de Wal, R. S. W.: Two ice-core δ18O records from Svalbard illustrating climate and sea-ice variability over the last 400 years, The Holocene, 15, 501–509, 2005{b}.

Jones, R. G., Murphy, J. M., and Noguer, M.: Simulation of Climate-Change over Europe Using a Nested Regional-Climate Model .1. Assessment of Control Climate, Including Sensitivity to Location of Lateral Boundaries, Q. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 121, 1413–1449, 1995.

Kaser, G., Cogley, J. G., Dyurgerov, M. B., Meier, M. F., and Ohmura, A.: Mass Balance of Glaciers and Ice Caps: Consensus Estimates for 1961–2004, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L19501, 5 pp., <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2006GL027511">https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL027511</a>, 2006.

Liestøl, O.: Glaciers of Svalbard, Norway, Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World, USGS Professional Paper 1386-E-5, 1993.

Meehl, G. A., Stocker, T. F., Collins, W. D., Friedlingstein, P., Gaye, A. T., Gregory, J. M., Kitoh, A., Knutti, R., Murphy, J. M., Noda, A., Raper, S. C. B., Watterson, I. G., Weaver, A. J., and Zhao, Z.-C.: Global Climate Projections, in: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K. B., Tignor, M., and Miller, H. L., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, NY, USA, 2007

Meier, M. F., Dyurgerov, M. B., Rick, U. K., O'Neel, S., Pfeffer, W. T., Anderson, R. S., Anderson, S. P., and Glazovsky, A. F.: Glaciers dominate Eustatic sea-level rise in the 21st century, Science, 317, 1064–1067, 2007.

Moholdt, G., Nuth, C., Hagen, J. O., and Kohler, J.: Recent elevation changes of Svalbard glaciers derived from ICESat laser altimetry, Remote Sens. Environ., 114, 11, 2756–2767, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2010.06.008, 2010.

Möller, M., Finkelnburg, R., Braun, M., Hock, R. and Jonsell, U., Pohjola, V. A., Scherer, D., and Schneider, C.: Climatic mass balance of the ice cap Vestfonna, Svalbard: A spatially distributed assessment using ERA-Interim and MODIS data, J. Geophys. Res., 116, F03009, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010JF001905">https://doi.org/10.1029/2010JF001905</a>, 2011.

Möller, M., Möller, R., Beaudon, R., Mattila, É., Finkelnburg, O. P., Braun, R., Grabiec, M., Jonsell, M., Luks, U., Puczko, B., Scherer, D., and Schneider, C.: Snowpack characteristics of Vestfonna and De Geerfonna (Nordaustlandet, Svalbard) – a spatiotemporal analysis based on multiyear snow-pit data, Geogr. Ann. A, 93, 273-�285, https://doi.org/ 10.1111/j.1468-0459.2011.00440.x, 2011.

Murphy, B. F., Marsiat, I., and Valdes, P.: Atmospheric contributions to the surface mass balance of Greenland in the HadAM3 atmospheric model, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 107, 4556, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2001JD000389">https://doi.org/10.1029/2001JD000389</a>, 2002.

Nakicenovic, N. and Swart, R.: Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, Cambridge University Press, UK, 612 pp., 2000.

Noguer, M., Jones, R., and Murphy, J.: Sources of systematic errors in the climatology of a regional climate model over Europe, Clim. Dynam., 14, 691–712, 1998.

Nordli, ø. and Kohler, J.: The early 20th century warming. Daily observations at Grnfjorden and Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen, Tech. Rep. 12/03, DNMI/klima, 2004.

Nuth, C., Moholdt, G., Kohler, J., Hagen, J. O., and Kb, A.: Svalbard glacier elevation changes and contribution to sea level rise, J. Geophys. Res., 115, F01008, 16 pp., <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008JF001223">https://doi.org/10.1029/2008JF001223</a>, 2010.

Oerlemans, J. and Reichert, B.: Relating glacier mass balance to meteorological data by using a seasonal sensitivity characteristic, J. Glaciol., 46, 1–6, 2000.

Oerlemans, J., Bassford, R. P., Chapman, W., Dowdeswell, J. A., Glazovsky, A. F., Hagen, J. O., Melvold, K., de Wildt, M. D., and van de Wal, R. S. W.: Estimating the contribution of Arctic glaciers to sea-level change in the next 100 years, Ann. Glaciol., 42, 230–236, 2005.

Overland, J. E. and Wang, M.: Future regional Arctic sea ice declines, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L17705, 7 pp., <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2007GL030808">https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GL030808</a>, 2007.

Pinglot, J. F., Pourchet, M., Lefauconnier, B., Hagen, J. O., Isaksson, E., Vaikmae, R., and Kamiyama, K.: Accumulation in Svalbard glaciers deduced from ice cores with nuclear tests and Chernobyl reference layers, Polar Res., 18, 315–321, 1999.

Polyak, L., Alley, R. B., Andrews, J. T., Brigham-Grette, J., Cronin, T. M., Darby, D. A., Dyke, A. S., Fitzpatrick, J. J., Funder, S., Holland, M., Jennings, A. E., Miller, G. H., O'Regan, M., Savelle, J., Serreze, M., St. John, K., White, J., Wolff, E.: History of sea ice in the Arctic, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 29, 1757–1778, 2010.

Pope, V. D., Gallani, M. L., Rowntree, P. R., and Stratton, R. A.: The impact of new physical parametrizations in the Hadley Centre climate model: HadAM3, Clim. Dynam., 16, 123–146, 2000.

Raper, V., Bamber, J., and Krabill, W.: Interpretation of the anomalous growth of Austfonna, Svalbard, a large Arctic ice cap, Ann. Glaciol., 42, 373–379, 2005.

Rayner, N. A., Parker, D. E., Horton, E. B., Folland, C. K., Alexander, L. V., Rowell, D. P., Kent, E. C., and Kaplan, A.: Global analyses of sea surface temperature, sea ice, and night marine air temperature since the late nineteenth century, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 108, 4407, 29 pp., <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2002JD002670">https://doi.org/10.1029/2002JD002670</a>, 2003.

Rinke, A. and Dethloff, K.: Simulated circum-Arctic climate changes by the end of the 21st century, Global Planet. Change, 62, 173–186, 2008.

Rogers, A. N., Bromwich, D. H., Sinclair, E. N., and Cullather, R. I.: The Atmospheric Hydrologic Cycle over the Arctic Basin from Reanalyses. Part II: Interannual Variability, J. Climate, 14, 11, 2414–2429, 2001.

Rye, C. J., Arnold, N. S., Willis, I. C., and Kohler, J.: Modeling the surface mass balance of a high Arctic glacier using the ERA-40 reanalysis, J. Geophys. Res.-Earth, 115, F02014, 18 pp., <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2009JF001364">https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JF001364</a>, 2010.

Sand, K., Winther, J. G., Marechal, D., Bruland, O., and Melvold, K.: Regional variations of snow accumulation on Spitsbergen, Svalbard, 1997–99, Nord. Hydrol., 34, 17–32, 2003.

Serreze, M., Holland, M. M., and Stroeve, J.: Perspectives on the Arctic's Shrinking Sea-Ice Cover, Science, 315, 5818, 1533–1536, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1139426, 2007.

Serreze, M. C., Barrett, A. P., Stroeve, J. C., Kindig, D. N., and Holland, M. M.: The emergence of surface-based Arctic amplification, Cryosphere, 3, 11–19, 2009.

Sharp, M. and Wang, L. B.: A Five-Year Record of Summer Melt on Eurasian Arctic Ice Caps, J. Climate, 22, 133–145, 2009.

Singarayer, J. S., Bamber, J. L., and Valdes, P. J.: Twenty-first-century climate impacts from a declining Arctic sea ice cover, J. Climate, 19, 1109–1125, 2006.

Skelly, W. C. and Henderson-Sellers, A.: Grid Box or Grid Point: what type of data do GCMs deliver to Climate Impacts Researchers?, Int. J. Climatol., 16, 1079–1086, 1996.

Stein, U. and Alpert, P.: Factor separation in numerical simulations, J. Atmos. Sci., 50, 2107–2115, 1993.

Stroeve, J., Holland, M. M., Meier, W., Scambos, T., and Serreze, M.: Arctic sea ice decline: Faster than forecast, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L09501, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2007GL029703">https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GL029703</a>, 2007.

Taurisano, A., Schuler, T. V., Hagen, J. O., Eiken, T., Loe, E., Melvold, K., and Kohler, J.: The distribution of snow accumulation across the Austfonna ice cap, Svalbard: direct measurements and modelling, Polar Res., 26, 1, 7–13.

Van de Wal, R. S. W. and Oerlemans, J.: An energy-balance model for the Greenland ice-sheet, Global Planet. Change, 9, 115–131, 1994.

Walczowski, W. and Piechura, J.: Influence of the West Spitsbergen Current on the local climate, Int. J. Climatol., 31, 1097–0088, 2011.

Wang, M. Y. and Overland, J. E.: A sea ice free summer Arctic within 30 years?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L07502, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009GL037820, 2009.

Wilson, M. F. and Henderson-Sellers, A.: A global archive of land cover and soils data for use in general circulation climate models, J. Climatol., 5, 119–143, 1985.

Wouters, B., Chambers, D., and Schrama, E. J. O.: GRACE observes small-scale mass loss in Greenland, Geophys. Res. Lett, 35, L20501, https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GL034816, 2008.

Yamamoto, K., Tachibana, Y., Honda, M., and Ukita, J.: Intra-seasonal relationship between the Northern Hemisphere sea ice variability and the North Atlantic Oscillation, Geophys. Res. Lett, 33, L14711, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2006GL026286">https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL026286</a>, 2006.