Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Greenland ice-sheet contribution to sea-level rise buffered by meltwater storage in firn

Nature volume 491, pages 240–243 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Surface melt on the Greenland ice sheet has shown increasing trends in areal extent and duration since the beginning of the satellite era1,2,3. Records for melt were broken in 20054, 20075, 20106 and 20127. Much of the increased surface melt is occurring in the percolation zone, a region of the accumulation area that is perennially covered by snow and firn (partly compacted snow). The fate of melt water in the percolation zone is poorly constrained: some may travel away from its point of origin and eventually influence the ice sheet’s flow dynamics and mass balance and the global sea level, whereas some may simply infiltrate into cold snow or firn and refreeze with none of these effects. Here we quantify the existing water storage capacity of the percolation zone of the Greenland ice sheet and show the potential for hundreds of gigatonnes of meltwater storage. We collected in situ observations of firn structure and meltwater retention along a roughly 85-kilometre-long transect of the melting accumulation area. Our data show that repeated infiltration events in which melt water penetrates deeply (more than 10 metres) eventually fill all pore space with water. As future surface melt intensifies under Arctic warming, a fraction of melt water that would otherwise contribute to sea-level rise will fill existing pore space of the percolation zone. We estimate the lower and upper bounds of this storage sink to be 322 ± 44 gigatonnes and  gigatonnes, respectively. Furthermore, we find that decades are required to fill this pore space under a range of plausible future climate conditions. Hence, routing of surface melt water into filling the pore space of the firn column will delay expansion of the area contributing to sea-level rise, although once the pore space is filled it cannot quickly be regenerated.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Greenland melt and study location.
Figure 2: Firn–ice content.
Figure 3: Capacity and fill depth at sites along study transect.
Figure 4: Pore space fill time under various future climate scenarios.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Mote, T. L. Greenland surface melt trends 1973–2007: evidence of a large increase in 2007. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L22507 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Tedesco, M. Snowmelt detection over the Greenland ice sheet from SSM/I brightness temperature daily variations. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L02504 (2007)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. Fettweis, X., Tedesco, M., van den Broeke, M. & Ettema, J. Melting trends over the Greenland ice sheet (1958–2009) from spaceborne microwave data and regional climate models. Cryosphere 5, 359–375 (2011)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Hanna, E. et al. Increased runoff from melt from the Greenland Ice Sheet: a response to global warming. J. Clim. 21, 331–341 (2008)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Tedesco, M. A new record in 2007 for melting in Greenland. Eos Trans. AGU 88, 383 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Box, J. E. et al. in State of the Climate in 2010 (eds Blunden, J., Arndt, D. S. & Baringer, M. O. ) 156–160 (AMS, 2011)

  7. Cole, S. Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt. NASA News Release 12–249. (2012)

  8. van Den Broeke, M. et al. Partitioning recent Greenland mass loss. Science 326, 984–986 (2009)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Huybrechts, P. et al. Response of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets to multi-millennial greenhouse warming in the earth system model of intermediate complexity LOVECLIM. Surv. Geophys. 32, 397–416 (2011)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Vizcaíno, M., Mikolajewicz, U., Jungclaus, J. & Schurgers, G. Climate modification by future ice sheet changes and consequences for ice sheet mass balance. Clim. Dyn. 34, 301–324 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Pfeffer, W. T., Meier, M. F. & Illangasekare, T. H. Retention of Greenland runoff by refreezing: implications for projected future sea level change. J. Geophys. Res. 96, 22117–22124 (1991)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  12. Janssens, I. & Huybrechts, P. The treatment of meltwater retention in mass-balance parameterizations of the Greenland ice sheet. Ann. Glaciol. 31, 133–140 (2000)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Braithwaite, R. J., Laternser, M. & Pfeffer, W. T. Variations of near-surface firn density in the lower accumulation area of the Greenland ice sheet, Pâkitsoq, West Greenland. J. Glaciol. 40, 477–485 (1994)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  14. Müller, F. Zonation in the accumulation area of the glaciers of Axel Heiberg Island, NWT, Canada. J. Glaciol. 4, 302–313 (1962)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  15. Marsh, P. & Woo, M. K. Wetting front advance and freezing of meltwater within a snow cover: 1. Observations in the Canadian Arctic. Wat. Resour. Res. 20, 1853–1864 (1984)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Reijmer, C., van den Broeke, M., Fettweis, X., Ettema, J. & Stap, L. Refreezing on the Greenland ice sheet: a comparison of parameterizations. Cryosphere 6, 743–762 (2012)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  17. Fischer, H., Wagenbach, D., Laternser, M. & Haeberli, W. Glacio-meteorological and isotopic studies along the EGIG line, central Greenland. J. Glaciol. 41, 515–527 (1995)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  18. Abdalati, W. & Steffen, K. Greenland ice sheet melt extent: 1979–1999. J. Geophys. Res. 106, 33983–33988 (2001)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  19. Bales, R. C., McConnell, J. R., Mosley-Thompson, E. & Csatho, B. Accumulation over the Greenland ice sheet from historical and recent records. J. Geophys. Res. 106, 33813–33825 (2001)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  20. Burgess, E. W. et al. A spatially calibrated model of annual accumulation rate on the Greenland Ice Sheet (1958–2007). J. Geophys. Res. 115, F02004 (2010)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  21. McConnell, J. R., Mosley-Thompson, E., Bromwich, D. H., Bales, R. C. & Kyne, J. D. Interannual variations of snow accumulation on the Greenland Ice Sheet (1985–1996): new observations versus model predictions. J. Geophys. Res. 105, 4039–4046 (2000)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  22. Humphrey, N. F., Harper, J. T. & Pfeffer, W. T. Thermal tracking of meltwater retention in Greenland’s accumulation area. J. Geophys. Res. 117, F01010 (2012)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  23. Brown, J., Harper, J., Pfeffer, W. T., Humphrey, N. & Bradford, J. High-resolution study of layering within the percolation and soaked facies of the Greenland ice sheet. Ann. Glaciol. 52, 35–42 (2011)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  24. Harper, J. T., Humphrey, N. F., Pfeffer, W. T. & Brown, J. Firn stratigraphy and temperature to 10 m depth in the percolation zone of Western Greenland, 2007–2009. INSTAAR Occas. Pap. 60. (2011)

  25. Brown, J. et al. Georadar-derived estimates of firn density in the percolation zone, western Greenland ice sheet. J. Geophys. Res. 117, F01011 (2012)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  26. Herron, M. M. & Langway, C. C., Jr Firn densification: an empirical model. J. Glaciol. 25, 373–385 (1980)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  27. Alley, R. B., Clark, P. U., Huybrechts, P. & Joughin, I. Ice-sheet and sea-level changes. Science 310, 456–460 (2005)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Fettweis, X., Belleflamme, A., Erpicum, M., Franco, B. & Nicolay, S. in Climate Change – Geophysical Foundations and Ecological Effects (eds Blanco, J. & Kheradmand, H. ) 503–520 (Intech, 2011)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Box, J. E., Bromwich, D. H. & Bai, L. S. Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance 1991–2000: application of Polar MM5 mesoscale model and in situ data. J. Geophys. Res. 109, D16105 (2004)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the US National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs, Arctic Natural Sciences with grants to J.H. (0612506), N.H. (0612374) and W.T.P. (0612351).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geosciences, University of Montana, Missoula, 59812, Montana, USA

    J. Harper & J. Brown

  2. Geology and Geophysics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, 82071, Wyoming, USA

    N. Humphrey

  3. Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, 80309, Colorado, USA

    W. T. Pfeffer

  4. Géographie, Université de Liège, Liège B11-4000, Belgium,

    X. Fettweis

Authors
  1. J. Harper
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. N. Humphrey
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. W. T. Pfeffer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. J. Brown
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. X. Fettweis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

J.H. led the analysis, N.H. led the thermal measurements, W.T.P. led the ice-core measurements, J.B. led the radar measurements and X.F. downscaled MAR model output to the study transect. J.H., W.T.P., N.H. and J.B. contributed to the preparation of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. Harper.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Text, Supplementary Figures 1-6, Supplementary Tables 1-2 and Supplementary References. (PDF 428 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Harper, J., Humphrey, N., Pfeffer, W. et al. Greenland ice-sheet contribution to sea-level rise buffered by meltwater storage in firn. Nature 491, 240–243 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11566

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11566

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing