Multistability of the Greenland ice sheet and the effects of an adaptive mass balance formulation

Published: Jul 1, 2012 by The PISM Authors


Title	Multistability of the Greenland ice sheet and the effects of an adaptive mass balance formulation
Authors	Anne M. Solgaard and Peter L. Langen
Venue	Climate Dynamics
Location	Greenland

We use output from a general circulation model (CAM3+CLM) to construct adaptive temperature and precipitation patterns to force PISM off-line, taking into consideration that the patterns change in a non-uniform way, both spatially and temporally, as the geometry of the ice sheet evolves and as climate changes. In a series of experiments we investigate retreat from the present day configuration and build-up from ice free conditions during a warmer-than-present climate. We find that the ice sheet is able to survive and build up at higher temperatures using the more realistic adaptive patterns compared to the classic constant patterns. The ice sheet is multistable at least for certain temperature forcings, so it does not necessarily return to its initial configuration after a temperature excursion.

A two-year PostDoc positions in ice sheet and Earth system modelling is available in the Ice Dynamics group, as part of the new Earth Resilience Science Unit (ERSU), at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Two PhD fellowship positions in ice sheet modelling are advertised at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen.

The Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven, is offering a PhD position in the field of coupled ice sheet-ocean modelling. The core of the project is to run simulations with FESOM-PISM (a coupled ocean-ice shelf-ice sheet model with evolving cavity geometries) for different 21st-century climate projections to obtain well-constrained trajectories of future ice mass loss from the vast Antarctic Ice Sheet. Model results will feed into a fingerprinting method that considers the ocean response as well as gravitational effects and contributions from other sources. The final product will be a time series of global maps of regional sea-level variations that consider all of the most relevant processes.