Patterns and Variations of Snow Accumulation over Greenland, 1979–98, from ECMWF Analyses, and Their Verification

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ECMWF monthly climate analyses were used to retrieve surface temperature, precipitation, evaporation/sublimation, and in conjunction with a simple meteorological model, snow accumulation over Greenland for 1979–98. The modeled snow accumulation is compared with existing observational maps of Greenland accumulation and mass balance, and with widely distributed coincident and contemporaneous ice-core data, primarily from NASA's Program in Arctic Regional Climate Assessment (PARCA) program. ECMWF-derived accumulation gave more realistic values for substantial (2–3-km elevation) areas of the “intermediate” inland plateau than previous methods, although the estimates are still (∼20%–30%) too low over central Greenland. Overall, this ECMWF-driven model provides a reasonable first-order depiction, among the best currently available, of snow accumulation and its interannual variations. Mean annual ECMWF precipitation (snow accumulation) for the whole island (Greenland area >2 km) was 0.314 (0.260) m yr−1... Abstract ECMWF monthly climate analyses were used to retrieve surface temperature, precipitation, evaporation/sublimation, and in conjunction with a simple meteorological model, snow accumulation over Greenland for 1979–98. The modeled snow accumulation is compared with existing observational maps of Greenland accumulation and mass balance, and with widely distributed coincident and contemporaneous ice-core data, primarily from NASA's Program in Arctic Regional Climate Assessment (PARCA) program. ECMWF-derived accumulation gave more realistic values for substantial (2–3-km elevation) areas of the “intermediate” inland plateau than previous methods, although the estimates are still (∼20%–30%) too low over central Greenland. Overall, this ECMWF-driven model provides a reasonable first-order depiction, among the best currently available, of snow accumulation and its interannual variations. Mean annual ECMWF precipitation (snow accumulation) for the whole island (Greenland area >2 km) was 0.314 (0.260) m yr−1...

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