@article{ZeitzReeseBeckmannetal.2021, author = {Zeitz, Maria and Reese, Ronja and Beckmann, Johanna and Krebs-Kanzow, Uta and Winkelmann, Ricarda}, title = {Impact of the melt-albedo feedback on the future evolution of the Greenland Ice Sheet with PISM-dEBM-simple}, series = {The Cryosphere : TC ; an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union}, volume = {15}, journal = {The Cryosphere : TC ; an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union}, number = {12}, publisher = {Copernicus}, address = {Katlenburg-Lindau}, issn = {1994-0416}, doi = {10.5194/tc-15-5739-2021}, pages = {5739 -- 5764}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Surface melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet contributes a large amount to current and future sea level rise. Increased surface melt may lower the reflectivity of the ice sheet surface and thereby increase melt rates: the so-called melt-albedo feedback describes this self-sustaining increase in surface melting. In order to test the effect of the melt-albedo feedback in a prognostic ice sheet model, we implement dEBM-simple, a simplified version of the diurnal Energy Balance Model dEBM, in the Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM). The implementation includes a simple representation of the melt-albedo feedback and can thereby replace the positive-degree-day melt scheme. Using PISM-dEBM-simple, we find that this feedback increases ice loss through surface warming by 60 \% until 2300 for the high-emission scenario RCP8.5 when compared to a scenario in which the albedo remains constant at its present-day values. With an increase of 90 \% compared to a fixed-albedo scenario, the effect is more pronounced for lower surface warming under RCP2.6. Furthermore, assuming an immediate darkening of the ice surface over all summer months, we estimate an upper bound for this effect to be 70 \% in the RCP8.5 scenario and a more than 4-fold increase under RCP2.6. With dEBM-simple implemented in PISM, we find that the melt-albedo feedback is an essential contributor to mass loss in dynamic simulations of the Greenland Ice Sheet under future warming.}, language = {en} } @article{ZeitzHaackerDongesetal.2022, author = {Zeitz, Maria and Haacker, Jan M. and Donges, Jonathan F. and Albrecht, Torsten and Winkelmann, Ricarda}, title = {Dynamic regimes of the Greenland Ice Sheet emerging from interacting melt-elevation and glacial isostatic adjustment feedbacks}, series = {Earth system dynamics}, volume = {13}, journal = {Earth system dynamics}, number = {3}, publisher = {Copernicus Publ.}, address = {G{\"o}ttingen}, issn = {2190-4979}, doi = {10.5194/esd-13-1077-2022}, pages = {1077 -- 1096}, year = {2022}, abstract = {The stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet under global warming is governed by a number of dynamic processes and interacting feedback mechanisms in the ice sheet, atmosphere and solid Earth. Here we study the long-term effects due to the interplay of the competing melt-elevation and glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) feedbacks for different temperature step forcing experiments with a coupled ice-sheet and solid-Earth model. Our model results show that for warming levels above 2 degrees C, Greenland could become essentially ice-free within several millennia, mainly as a result of surface melting and acceleration of ice flow. These ice losses are mitigated, however, in some cases with strong GIA feedback even promoting an incomplete recovery of the Greenland ice volume. We further explore the full-factorial parameter space determining the relative strengths of the two feedbacks: our findings suggest distinct dynamic regimes of the Greenland Ice Sheets on the route to destabilization under global warming - from incomplete recovery, via quasi-periodic oscillations in ice volume to ice-sheet collapse. In the incomplete recovery regime, the initial ice loss due to warming is essentially reversed within 50 000 years, and the ice volume stabilizes at 61 \%-93 \% of the present-day volume. For certain combinations of temperature increase, atmospheric lapse rate and mantle viscosity, the interaction of the GIA feedback and the melt-elevation feedback leads to self-sustained, long-term oscillations in ice-sheet volume with oscillation periods between 74 000 and over 300 000 years and oscillation amplitudes between 15 \%-70 \% of present-day ice volume. This oscillatory regime reveals a possible mode of internal climatic variability in the Earth system on timescales on the order of 100 000 years that may be excited by or synchronized with orbital forcing or interact with glacial cycles and other slow modes of variability. Our findings are not meant as scenario-based near-term projections of ice losses but rather providing insight into of the feedback loops governing the "deep future" and, thus, long-term resilience of the Greenland Ice Sheet.}, language = {en} } @article{ZeitzLevermannWinkelmann2020, author = {Zeitz, Maria and Levermann, Anders and Winkelmann, Ricarda}, title = {Sensitivity of ice loss to uncertainty in flow law parameters in an idealized one-dimensional geometry}, series = {The Cryosphere : TC ; an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union}, volume = {14}, journal = {The Cryosphere : TC ; an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union}, number = {10}, publisher = {Copernicus}, address = {G{\"o}ttingen}, issn = {1994-0416}, doi = {10.5194/tc-14-3537-2020}, pages = {3537 -- 3550}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Acceleration of the flow of ice drives mass losses in both the Antarctic and the Greenland Ice Sheet. The projections of possible future sea-level rise rely on numerical ice-sheet models, which solve the physics of ice flow, melt, and calving. While major advancements have been made by the ice-sheet modeling community in addressing several of the related uncertainties, the flow law, which is at the center of most process-based ice-sheet models, is not in the focus of the current scientific debate. However, recent studies show that the flow law parameters are highly uncertain and might be different from the widely accepted standard values. Here, we use an idealized flow-line setup to investigate how these uncertainties in the flow law translate into uncertainties in flow-driven mass loss. In order to disentangle the effect of future warming on the ice flow from other effects, we perform a suite of experiments with the Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM), deliberately excluding changes in the surface mass balance. We find that changes in the flow parameters within the observed range can lead up to a doubling of the flow-driven mass loss within the first centuries of warming, compared to standard parameters. The spread of ice loss due to the uncertainty in flow parameters is on the same order of magnitude as the increase in mass loss due to surface warming. While this study focuses on an idealized flow-line geometry, it is likely that this uncertainty carries over to realistic three-dimensional simulations of Greenland and Antarctica.}, language = {en} }