PROTECT paper #7 is published! Learn more about Greenland Blocking and its effect on the Greenland Ice Sheet melt.
Here are the main results:
- The recent increase in atmospheric blocking situation has favoured warm air advection over Greenland resulting in several melt records these last 20 years
- We firstly assessed the ability of CMIP6 models to represent the occurrence of blocking events in Greenland using the Greenland Blocking Index as an evaluation metric. None of the models are able to represent the recent trend.
- In addition, as was already the case for the previous generation models (CMIP5), they do not project any increase in blocking situations by 2100
- Since such events enhance surface melt, projections of ice sheet melt could be underestimated if such events continue to occur in the future and even within the framework of CMIP6 which already projects more melt see PROTECT paper#5
- But a million-euro question: will these events really continue to happen in the future?