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    initMIP-Antarctica: an ice sheet model initialization experiment of ISMIP6
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus, 2019) Seroussi, Hélène; Nowicki, Sophie; Simon, Erika; Abe-Ouchi, Ayako; Albrecht, Torsten; Brondex, Julien; Cornford, Stephen; Dumas, Christophe; Gillet-Chaulet, Fabien; Goelzer, Heiko; Golledge, Nicholas R.; Gregory, Jonathan M.; Greve, Ralf; Hoffman, Matthew J.; Humbert, Angelika; Huybrechts, Philippe; Kleiner, Thomas; Larour, Eric; Leguy, Gunter; Lipscomb, William H.; Lowry, Daniel; Mengel, Matthias; Morlighem, Mathieu; Pattyn, Frank; Payne, Anthony J.; Pollard, David; Price, Stephen F.; Quiquet, Aurélien; Reerink, Thomas J.; Reese, Ronja; Rodehacke, Christian B.; Schlegel, Nicole-Jeanne; Shepherd, Andrew; Sun, Sainan; Sutter, Johannes; Van Breedam, Jonas; van de Wal, Roderik S. W.; Winkelmann, Ricarda; Zhang, Tong
    Ice sheet numerical modeling is an important tool to estimate the dynamic contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet to sea level rise over the coming centuries. The influence of initial conditions on ice sheet model simulations, however, is still unclear. To better understand this influence, an initial state intercomparison exercise (initMIP) has been developed to compare, evaluate, and improve initialization procedures and estimate their impact on century-scale simulations. initMIP is the first set of experiments of the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP6 (ISMIP6), which is the primary Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) activity focusing on the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Following initMIP-Greenland, initMIP-Antarctica has been designed to explore uncertainties associated with model initialization and spin-up and to evaluate the impact of changes in external forcings. Starting from the state of the Antarctic ice sheet at the end of the initialization procedure, three forward experiments are each run for 100 years: a control run, a run with a surface mass balance anomaly, and a run with a basal melting anomaly beneath floating ice. This study presents the results of initMIP-Antarctica from 25 simulations performed by 16 international modeling groups. The submitted results use different initial conditions and initialization methods, as well as ice flow model parameters and reference external forcings. We find a good agreement among model responses to the surface mass balance anomaly but large variations in responses to the basal melting anomaly. These variations can be attributed to differences in the extent of ice shelves and their upstream tributaries, the numerical treatment of grounding line, and the initial ocean conditions applied, suggesting that ongoing efforts to better represent ice shelves in continental-scale models should continue.
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    A confined-unconfined aquifer model for subglacial hydrology and its application to the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus, 2018) Beyer, Sebastian; Kleiner, Thomas; Aizinger, Vadym; Rückamp, Martin; Humbert, Angelika
    Subglacial hydrology plays an important role in ice sheet dynamics as it determines the sliding velocity. It also drives freshwater into the ocean, leading to undercutting of calving fronts by plumes. Modeling subglacial water has been a challenge for decades. Only recently have new approaches been developed such as representing subglacial channels and thin water sheets by separate layers of variable hydraulic conductivity. We extend this concept by modeling a confined-unconfined aquifer system (CUAS) in a single layer of an equivalent porous medium (EPM). The advantage of this formulation is that it prevents unphysical values of pressure at reasonable computational cost. We performed sensitivity tests to investigate the effect of different model parameters. The strongest influence of model parameters was detected in terms of governing the opening and closure of the system. Furthermore, we applied the model to the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream, where an efficient system independent of seasonal input was identified about 500 km downstream from the ice divide. Using the effective pressure from the hydrology model, the Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM) showed considerable improvements in modeled velocities in the coastal region.
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    Simulation of the future sea level contribution of Greenland with a new glacial system model
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus, 2018) Calov, Reinhard; Beyer, Sebastian; Greve, Ralf; Beckmann, Johanna; Willeit, Matteo; Kleiner, Thomas; Rückamp, Martin; Humbert, Angelika; Ganopolski, Andrey
    We introduce the coupled model of the Greenland glacial system IGLOO 1.0, including the polythermal ice sheet model SICOPOLIS (version 3.3) with hybrid dynamics, the model of basal hydrology HYDRO and a parameterization of submarine melt for marine-terminated outlet glaciers. The aim of this glacial system model is to gain a better understanding of the processes important for the future contribution of the Greenland ice sheet to sea level rise under future climate change scenarios. The ice sheet is initialized via a relaxation towards observed surface elevation, imposing the palaeo-surface temperature over the last glacial cycle. As a present-day reference, we use the 1961-1990 standard climatology derived from simulations of the regional atmosphere model MAR with ERA reanalysis boundary conditions. For the palaeo-part of the spin-up, we add the temperature anomaly derived from the GRIP ice core to the years 1961-1990 average surface temperature field. For our projections, we apply surface temperature and surface mass balance anomalies derived from RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios created by MAR with boundary conditions from simulations with three CMIP5 models. The hybrid ice sheet model is fully coupled with the model of basal hydrology. With this model and the MAR scenarios, we perform simulations to estimate the contribution of the Greenland ice sheet to future sea level rise until the end of the 21st and 23rd centuries. Further on, the impact of elevation-surface mass balance feedback, introduced via the MAR data, on future sea level rise is inspected. In our projections, we found the Greenland ice sheet to contribute between 1.9 and 13.0 cm to global sea level rise until the year 2100 and between 3.5 and 76.4 cm until the year 2300, including our simulated additional sea level rise due to elevation-surface mass balance feedback. Translated into additional sea level rise, the strength of this feedback in the year 2100 varies from 0.4 to 1.7 cm, and in the year 2300 it ranges from 1.7 to 21.8 cm. Additionally, taking the Helheim and Store glaciers as examples, we investigate the role of ocean warming and surface runoff change for the melting of outlet glaciers. It shows that ocean temperature and subglacial discharge are about equally important for the melting of the examined outlet glaciers.