Print Email Facebook Twitter Brief communication Title Brief communication: CESM2 climate forcing (1950-2014) yields realistic Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance Author Noël, Brice (Universiteit Utrecht) Van Kampenhout, Leonardus (Universiteit Utrecht) Jan Van De Berg, Willem (Universiteit Utrecht) Lenaerts, Jan T.M. (University of Colorado) Wouters, B. (TU Delft Physical and Space Geodesy; Universiteit Utrecht) R. Van Den Broeke, Michiel (Universiteit Utrecht) Date 2020 Abstract We present a reconstruction of historical (1950–2014) surface mass balance (SMB) of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) using a high-resolution regional climate model (RACMO2; ∼ 11 km) to dynamically downscale the climate of the Community Earth System Model version 2 (CESM2; ∼ 111 km). After further statistical downscaling to 1 km spatial resolution, evaluation using in situ SMB measurements and remotely sensed GrIS mass change shows good agreement. Comparison with an ensemble of previously conducted RACMO2 simulations forced by climate reanalysis demonstrates that the current product realistically represents the long-term average and variability of individual SMB components and captures the recent increase in meltwater runoff that accelerated GrIS mass loss. This means that, for the first time, climate forcing from an Earth system model (CESM2), which assimilates no observations, can be used without additional corrections to reconstruct the historical GrIS SMB and its recent decline that initiated mass loss in the 1990s. This paves the way for attribution studies of future GrIS mass loss projections and contribution to sea level rise. To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:d8c3b2e5-1496-4e95-957c-d197288d5fed DOI https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1425-2020 ISSN 1994-0416 Source The Cryosphere, 14 (4), 1425-1435 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2020 Brice Noël, Leonardus Van Kampenhout, Willem Jan Van De Berg, Jan T.M. Lenaerts, B. Wouters, Michiel R. Van Den Broeke Files PDF tc_14_1425_2020.pdf 3.52 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:d8c3b2e5-1496-4e95-957c-d197288d5fed/datastream/OBJ/view