Abstract
We assess the ability of the regional circulation model MAR to represent the recent negative surface mass balance (SMB) observed over the Kerguelen Islands (\(49^{\circ }\hbox {S}\), \(69^{\circ }\hbox {E}\)) and evaluate the uncertainties in SMB projections until the end of the century. The MAR model forced by ERA-Interim reanalysis shows a good agreement with meteorological observations at Kerguelen, particularly after slight adjustment of the forcing fields (+ 10% humidity, \(+\,0.8\, ^{\circ }\hbox {C}\), all year round) to improve precipitation occurrence and intensity. The modeled SMB and surface energy balance (SEB) are also successfully evaluated with observations, and spatial distributions are explained as being largely driven by the elevation gradient and by the strong west to east foehn effect occurring on the ice cap. We select five general circulation models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) by evaluating their ability to represent temperature and humidity in the southern mid-latitudes over 1980–1999 with respect to ERA-Interim and use them to force the MAR model. These simulations fail to replicate SMB observations even when outputs from the best CMIP5 model (ACCESS1-3) are used as forcing because all GCMs fail in accurately reproducing the circulation changes observed at Kerguelen since the mid-1970s. Global models chosen to represent extreme values of SMB drivers also fail in producing extreme values of SMB, suggesting that more rigorous modeling of present and future circulation changes with GCMs is still needed to accurately assess future changes of the cryosphere in this area.
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Acknowledgements
This study was funded by IPEV-1048 GLACIOCLIM-KESAACO and LEFE-INSU KCRuMBLE programs. Deborah Verfaillie’s work has been partially funded by the European project EUCP (H2020-SC5-2016-776613). Logistical supply to the Kerguelen Islands was provided by the French Polar Institute (IPEV). We particularly thank Météo France for the meteorological data from PAF. ERA-Interim reanalysis data were downloaded from the ECMWF data portal at http://apps.ecmwf.int/archive-catalogue/. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Program’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups (listed in Supplementary Table 1) for producing and making available their model outputs. Regional climate modeling was performed using the Froggy platform of the CIMENT infrastructure (https://ciment.ujf-grenoble.fr), which is supported by the Rhône-Alpes region (GRANT CPER07_13 CIRA), the OSUG@2020 labex (reference ANR10 LABX56) and the Equip@Meso project (reference ANR-10-EQPX-29-01) of the programme Investissements d’Avenir supervised by the Agence Nationale pour la Recherche. We would like to thank Rachel H. White and Marcus Falls for their help with language editing, and the Editor and an anonymous Reviewer for their constructive comments during the review of this article.
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Verfaillie, D., Favier, V., Gallée, H. et al. Regional modeling of surface mass balance on the Cook Ice Cap, Kerguelen Islands (\(49^{\circ }\mathrm{S}\), \(69^{\circ }\mathrm{E}\)). Clim Dyn 53, 5909–5925 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-019-04904-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-019-04904-z