2013/01/01 by Hélène Seroussi, H. Seroussi, M. Morlighem +7 · 179 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Climate change and permafrost #Climatology #Cryosphere #Cryospheric studies and observations #Future sea level #Geography #Geology #Geomorphology #Geophysics #Geothermal gradient #Greenland ice sheet #Heat flux #Heat transfer #Ice sheet #Ice stream #Ice-sheet model #Landslides and related hazards #Mechanics #Meteorology #Sea ice #Thermal
paper · pdf · doi:10.3189/2013jog13j054
published in Journal of Glaciology 59(218), 1024-1034 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2013/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Abstract Observations show that the Greenland ice sheet has been losing mass at an increasing rate over the past few decades, which makes it a major contributor to sea-level rise. Here we use a three-dimensional higher-order ice-flow model, adaptive mesh refinement and inverse methods to accurately reproduce the present-day ice flow of the Greenland ice sheet. We investigate the effect of the ice thermal regime on (1) basal sliding inversion and (2) projections over the next 100 years. We show that steady-state temperatures based on present-day conditions allow a reasonable representation of the thermal regime and that both basal conditions and century-scale projections are weakly sensitive to small changes in the initial temperature field, compared with changes in atmospheric conditions or basal sliding. We conclude that although more englacial temperature measurements should be acquired to validate the models, and a better estimation of geothermal heat flux is needed, it is reasonable to use steady-state temperature profiles for short-term projections, as external forcings remain the main drivers of the changes occurring in Greenland.