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Amplified melt and flow of the Greenland ice sheet driven by late-summer cyclonic rainfall

Nature Geoscience volume 8, pages 647–653 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Intense rainfall events significantly affect Alpine and Alaskan glaciers through enhanced melting, ice-flow acceleration and subglacial sediment erosion, yet their impact on the Greenland ice sheet has not been assessed. Here we present measurements of ice velocity, subglacial water pressure and meteorological variables from the western margin of the Greenland ice sheet during a week of warm, wet cyclonic weather in late August and early September 2011. We find that extreme surface runoff from melt and rainfall led to a widespread acceleration in ice flow that extended 140 km into the ice-sheet interior. We suggest that the late-season timing was critical in promoting rapid runoff across an extensive bare ice surface that overwhelmed a subglacial hydrological system in transition to a less-efficient winter mode. Reanalysis data reveal that similar cyclonic weather conditions prevailed across southern and western Greenland during this time, and we observe a corresponding ice-flow response at all land- and marine-terminating glaciers in these regions for which data are available. Given that the advection of warm, moist air masses and rainfall over Greenland is expected to become more frequent in the coming decades, our findings portend a previously unforeseen vulnerability of the Greenland ice sheet to climate change.

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Figure 1: The study area.
Figure 2: Records of meteorology, proglacial discharge, and ice velocity for the 2011 melt season.
Figure 3: The surface energy budget, melt, borehole water pressure and ice surface velocity and uplift at R13.
Figure 4: Reanalysis data for the August/September 2011 event including sea-level pressure for 27 August 2011, the near-surface air temperature (TAS) anomaly for the period 26 August–1 September versus the same period in the 1981–2010 baseline, and total precipitation for the week 26–30 August.
Figure 5: Long-term trends in rainfall seasonality and elevation.

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Acknowledgements

This research was financially supported by: SKB/Posiva through the Greenland Analogue Project (GAP); UK National Environment Research Council (NERC) grants NE/G005796/1, NE/G010595/1, NE/H024204/1; a Royal Geographical Society Gilchrist Fieldwork Award; and The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NOW/PPP)—the last of which generously supported the K-transect measurements. TanDEM-X data were provided by the German Aerospace centre (DLR) within the framework of the XTI_GLAC0433 project. We thank UNAVCO, the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the Danish Meteorological Institute, MIT, J. Cappellen, R. Pettersson, K. Lindback and A. Fitzpatrick for help with data collection and processing. The crew of SV Gambo are thanked for help in the deployment of the Store Glacier GPS. A.H. and H.P. were supported at the Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate by funding from the Research Council of Norway (Grant No. 223259). S.H.D. was supported by an Aberystwyth University doctoral scholarship and NERC grant NE/K006126.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography & Earth Sciences, Centre for Glaciology, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB, UK

    Samuel H. Doyle & Bryn Hubbard

  2. Department of Geology, Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate, The Arctic University of Norway, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway

    Alun Hubbard & Henry Patton

  3. Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, PO Box 80005 3508TA Utrecht, Netherlands,

    Roderik S. W. van de Wal & Paul C. J. P. Smeets

  4. Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Øster Voldgade 10 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark,

    Jason E. Box & Dirk van As

  5. Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, 1036 Derby Hall, 154 North Oval Mall Columbus, Ohio 43210-1361, USA,

    Jason E. Box

  6. ENVEO IT GmbH, Innsbruck 6020, Austria

    Kilian Scharrer

  7. Department of Geosciences, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana 59812, USA

    Toby W. Meierbachtol & Joel T. Harper

  8. Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Bert Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

    Emma Johansson

  9. Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co, Box 250 SE-101 24 Stockholm, Sweden,

    Emma Johansson

  10. Danish Meteorological Institute, Lyngbyvej 100 DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark,

    Ruth H. Mottram

  11. Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 10 DK-1350 Copenhagen, Denmark,

    Andreas B. Mikkelsen

  12. Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Am Handelshafen 12 27570 Bremerhaven, Germany,

    Frank Wilhelms

  13. Department of Crystallography, Geoscience Centre, University of Göttingen, Goldschmidtstraße 1 37077 Göttingen, Germany,

    Frank Wilhelms

  14. Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road Cambridge CB2 1ER, UK,

    Poul Christoffersen

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  1. Samuel H. Doyle
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Contributions

A.H., S.H.D., T.W.M. and J.T.H. collected the dual-frequency GPS data. S.H.D. processed the dual-frequency GPS data, collated the data sets, prepared the figures and wrote the original manuscript. R.S.W.v.d.W. and P.C.J.P.S. provided the single-frequency GPS data, and together with F.W. acquired the borehole water pressure record. J.E.B. provided and interpreted the reanalysis data and advised on meteorology. D.v.A. collected and processed the AWS data sets and modelled the surface energy balance. K.S. processed the TanDEM-X data sets. E.J. applied the correction to the precipitation records. R.H.M. performed the HIRHAM5 regional climate modelling. B.H. advised on the analysis of borehole water pressure records and their relationship to ice velocity. H.P. processed the Terra SAR-X data for Jakobshavn Isbræ. P.C. and A.B.M. provided additional advice on data interpretation and analysis. All authors contributed to the subsequent editing of the manuscript. A.H. was the P.I. of the main project that conceived the study and co-developed it with S.H.D.

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Correspondence to Samuel H. Doyle.

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Doyle, S., Hubbard, A., van de Wal, R. et al. Amplified melt and flow of the Greenland ice sheet driven by late-summer cyclonic rainfall. Nature Geosci 8, 647–653 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2482

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