The climate factors revealed in the study shed new light on Greenland’s climate and can help predict the future development of Greenland’s ice sheet

In recent years, Greenland has warmed faster than the global average. A new study identifies clear-sky downwelling longwave radiation—heat radiated by the atmosphere to the surface—along with moisture advection, high-pressure anomalies, and surface albedo feedback, as key drivers of this accelerated warming. These factors are contributing to the rapid melting of Greenland's ice sheet. The findings are crucial for predicting future ice sheet behavior and its potential impact on global sea levels.

Image title: Causes of amplified warming trend over Greenland

Image caption: The results of the study reveal the clear-sky downwelling longwave radiation from the atmosphere and the resulting surface albedo feedback due to the melting of ice as the dominant factors for abnormal temperatures of Greenland.

Image credit: Professor Kyung-Ja Ha from Pusan National University, South Korea

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Global warming, driven by human activities, has led to rising average temperatures worldwide. However, Greenland has been warming at an even faster rate than the rest of the world, leading to accelerated ice sheet melting. This intensified warming in the northern regions, known as Arctic Amplification, has the potential to raise sea levels significantly, posing a threat to coastal areas and ecosystems globally. Understanding the drivers behind this phenomenon is crucial for predicting future climate impacts.

Studies have previously attributed Arctic Amplification to local climate feedback processes, heat release from the Arctic Ocean, and energy transport from the south. Melting sea ice during summers further amplifies warming trends through a process known as surface albedo feedback, where less ice leads to less sunlight being reflected into space. Additionally, the Greenland blocking index—a climate mode indicating the strength of high-pressure blocking conditions over Greenland—has been linked to temperature trends in the region. However, past studies have primarily focused on overall warming trends, often overlooking the specific causes of extreme year-to-year temperature events and relying mainly on energy balance models.

To address these gaps, a team of researchers from Korea, led by Professor Kyung-Ja Ha, from the Department of Climate System at Pusan National University, including Manuel Tobias Blau, also from Pusan National University, and Dr. Eui-Seok Chung from the Division of Atmospheric Sciences at Korea Polar Research Institute, investigated the anomalous warming trends in Greenland from 1979 to 2021. “In this study, we focused on the year-to-year perturbations of the surface energy budget to explain Greenland’s extreme temperature,” explains Prof. Ha. Their study was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment on July 28, 2024.

The researchers employed a surface energy budget x-x-framework, which separates the contributions of radiative and non-radiative sources, to analyze temperature anomaly events over Greenland. Their findings revealed that increases in clear-sky downwelling longwave radiation—the heat radiated by the atmosphere to the surface on clear-sky days—and the resulting surface albedo feedback were the dominant factors in Greenland’s surface warming.

The researchers also investigated the mechanism for this increase in clear-sky radiation and found an increase in atmospheric temperature as the primary driver. Specifically, in warm years, the combination of increased surface temperatures and tropospheric warming led to turbulent heat exchange between the atmosphere and the surface. This process also enhanced moisture transport from the south to Greenland and contributed to the formation of a high-pressure system, resembling a blocking anticyclone, which trapped and sustained warm conditions. These dynamics resulted in intense ice melting, creating a feedback loop that further amplified the warming effects. Moreover, different modes of natural climate variability, particularly those related to the blocking index, can either amplify or moderate these warming trends, leading to extreme temperature events.

“The results suggest a significant impact of natural variability in explaining the atmospheric anomalies leading to extreme summers over Greenland,” says Prof. Ha. Highlighting the importance of the study, she adds, “Considering climate change, the extreme summer temperature over Greenland will further accelerate the ice sheet melting, leading to a rapid sea level rise.”

By shedding light on the drivers of Greenland's extreme summer temperatures, this study offers crucial insights that could help project the future development of the Greenland ice sheet and inform strategies to prevent further degradation.

Reference

About the institute

Pusan National University, located in Busan, South Korea, was founded in 1946 and is now the No. 1 national university of South Korea in research and educational competency. The multi-campus university also has other smaller campuses in Yangsan, Miryang, and Ami. The university prides itself on the principles of truth, freedom, and service, and has approximately 30,000 students, 1200 professors, and 750 faculty members. The university is composed of 14 colleges (schools) and one independent division, with 103 departments in all.

Website: https://www.pusan.ac.kr/eng/Main.do

About the authors

Professor Kyung-Ja Ha is a climate physicist at IBS Center for Climate Physics and Institute for Future Earth of Pusan National University from South Korea. She has been a Professor at the Department of Climate System (~2016) and the Department of Atmospheric Sciences (~1994) at Pusan National University and leads the Global Monsoon Climate Lab (GMCL). She received her M.S. from Seoul National University, Korea, in 1984 and her Ph.D. from Yonsei University in 1992. She was a member of the presidential Science and Technology advisory committee and president of Korea Meteorological Society at South Korea. She has published over 300 articles and has been cited over 7,000 times. Her research interests include climate physics, monsoon dynamics, planetary boundary layer modeling, hydroclimate, and tropical-extratropical interaction.

She has co-authored this article with Manuel Tobias Blau and Dr. Eui-Seok Chung.

Mr. Manuel Blau is a graduate student in the interdisciplinary Department of Climate System at Pusan National University. He is pursuing his Ph.D. degree under the supervision of Prof. Ha.

Dr. Eui-Seok Chung is working on the detection and attribution of climate change over the polar regions at the Korea Polar Research Institute.

Lab website: https://ibsclimate.org http://gmcl.pusan.ac.kr

ORCID id: 0000-0003-1753-9304