Atmospheric Drivers of Greenland Surface Melt Revealed by Self Organizing Maps

Abstract:

Recent acceleration in summer surface melt on the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) has occurred concurrently with a rapidly warming Arctic and has been connected to persistent, anomalous circulation patterns over Greenland. To identify patterns that favor enhanced GrIS surface melt and their decadal changes, we first develop a summer Arctic synoptic climatology by employing a nonlinear classification technique known as the self organizing map (SOM). This is applied to daily JJA sea level pressure (SLP) and 500 hPa geopotential height fields obtained from the Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) reanalysis product from 1979 to 2014. Model output from Modèle Atmosphérique Régional (MAR) is used to relate meteorological conditions and subsequent Greenland surface melt anomalies to particular circulation regimes. 

Results demonstrate that circulation patterns featuring positive SLP anomalies from Greenland to the Beaufort Sea support the largest positive surface melt anomalies, particularly over western Greenland. These patterns facilitate strong meridional transport of heat and moisture, contrasted by a dominant zonal flow across the North Atlantic during periods of low surface melt. Additionally, composites of energy balance components reveal that melt events are favored under clear conditions generating positive shortwave radiation anomalies rather than increased downwelling longwave radiation occurring with increased cloud cover. Sea surface temperature anomalies suggest that there may be a linkage between surface melt and recent sea ice loss around Greenland, though a causal relationship is not established. We assess decadal shifts in the SOM nodes, finding an increased frequency of upper level patterns favoring higher 500 hPa geopotential heights primarily over Greenland. The observed increases in GrIS melt through the time period coincides with this shift in SOM node frequency.