Advanced Review

Greenland climate change: from the past to the future

  1. Valérie Masson-Delmotte1,*,
  2. Didier Swingedouw1,
  3. Amaëlle Landais1,
  4. Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz2,
  5. Emilie Gauthier3,
  6. Vincent Bichet3,
  7. Charly Massa3,
  8. Bianca Perren3,
  9. Vincent Jomelli4,
  10. Gudfinna Adalgeirsdottir5,6,
  11. Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen5,6,
  12. Jette Arneborg7,
  13. Uma Bhatt8,
  14. Donald A. Walker8,
  15. Bo Elberling9,10,
  16. Fabien Gillet-Chaulet11,
  17. Catherine Ritz11,
  18. Hubert Gallée11,
  19. Michiel van den Broeke12,
  20. Xavier Fettweis13,
  21. Anne de Vernal14,
  22. Bo Vinther15

Article first published online: 10 AUG 2012

DOI: 10.1002/wcc.186

Issue

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change

Volume 3, Issue 5, pages 427–449, September/October 2012

Additional Information

How to Cite

Masson-Delmotte, V., Swingedouw, D., Landais, A., Seidenkrantz, M.-S., Gauthier, E., Bichet, V., Massa, C., Perren, B., Jomelli, V., Adalgeirsdottir, G., Hesselbjerg Christensen, J., Arneborg, J., Bhatt, U., Walker, D. A., Elberling, B., Gillet-Chaulet, F., Ritz, C., Gallée, H., van den Broeke, M., Fettweis, X., de Vernal, A. and Vinther, B. (2012), Greenland climate change: from the past to the future. WIREs Clim Change, 3: 427–449. doi: 10.1002/wcc.186

Author Information

  1. 1

    IPSL/LSCE, UMR CEA-CNRS-UVSQ 8212, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

  2. 2

    Centre for Past Climate Studies, Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

  3. 3

    Chrono-Environnement, UMR, Besançon, France

  4. 4

    CNRS-Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne LGP, UMR, Meudon, France

  5. 5

    Danish Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark

  6. 6

    Greenland Climate Research Centre, Nuuk, Greenland

  7. 7

    National Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark

  8. 8

    Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, USA

  9. 9

    Center for Permafrost (CENPERM), Department of Geography and Geology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

  10. 10

    The University Center in Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway

  11. 11

    UJF-Grenoble I/CNRS, LGGE, UMR 5183, Grenoble, France

  12. 12

    Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

  13. 13

    Department of Geography, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

  14. 14

    GEOTOP, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Montréal, Canada

  15. 15

    Ice and Climate Center, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

*IPSL/LSCE, UMR CEA-CNRS-UVSQ 8212, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 13 AUG 2012
  2. Article first published online: 10 AUG 2012

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Abstract

Climate archives available from deep sea and marine shelf sediments, glaciers, lakes, and ice cores in and around Greenland allow us to place the current trends in regional climate, ice sheet dynamics, and land surface changes in a broader perspective. We show that, during the last decade (2000s), atmospheric and sea surface temperatures are reaching levels last encountered millennia ago, when northern high latitude summer insolation was higher due to a different orbital configuration. Records from lake sediments in southern Greenland document major environmental and climatic conditions during the last 10,000 years, highlighting the role of soil dynamics in past vegetation changes, and stressing the growing anthropogenic impacts on soil erosion during the recent decades. Furthermore, past and present changes in atmospheric and oceanic heat advection appear to strongly influence both regional climate and ice sheet dynamics. Projections from climate models are investigated to quantify the magnitude and rates of future changes in Greenland temperature, which may be faster than past abrupt events occurring under interglacial conditions. Within one century, in response to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, Greenland may reach temperatures last time encountered during the last interglacial period, approximately 125,000 years ago. We review and discuss whether analogies between the last interglacial and future changes are reasonable, because of the different seasonal impacts of orbital and greenhouse gas forcings. Over several decades to centuries, future Greenland melt may act as a negative feedback, limiting regional warming albeit with global sea level and climatic impacts. WIREs Clim Change 2012 doi: 10.1002/wcc.186

For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

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