4 Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground Coordinating Lead Authors: Peter Lemke (Germany), Jiawen Ren (China) Lead Authors: Richard B. Alley (USA), Ian Allison (Australia), Jorge Carrasco (Chile), Gregory Flato (Canada), Yoshiyuki Fujii (Japan), Georg Kaser (Austria, Italy), Philip Mote (USA), Robert H. Thomas (USA, Chile), Tingjun Zhang (USA, China) Contributing Authors: J. Box (USA), D. Bromwich (USA), R. Brown (Canada), J.G. Cogley (Canada), J. Comiso (USA), M. Dyurgerov (Sweden, USA), B. Fitzharris (New Zealand), O. Frauenfeld (USA, Austria), H. Fricker (USA), G. H. Gudmundsson (UK, Iceland), C. Haas (Germany), J.O. Hagen (Norway), C. Harris (UK), L. Hinzman (USA), R. Hock (Sweden), M. Hoelzle (Switzerland), P. Huybrechts (Belgium), K. Isaksen (Norway), P. Jansson (Sweden), A. Jenkins (UK), Ian Joughin (USA), C. Kottmeier (Germany), R. Kwok (USA), S. Laxon (UK), S. Liu (China), D. MacAyeal (USA), H. Melling (Canada), A. Ohmura (Switzerland), A. Payne (UK), T. Prowse (Canada), B.H. Raup (USA), C. Raymond (USA), E. Rignot (USA), I. Rigor (USA), D. Robinson (USA), D. Rothrock (USA), S.C. Scherrer (Switzerland), S. Smith (Canada), O. Solomina (Russian Federation), D. Vaughan (UK), J. Walsh (USA), A. Worby (Australia), T. Yamada (Japan), L. Zhao (China) Review Editors: Roger Barry (USA), Toshio Koike (Japan) This chapter should be cited as: Lemke, P., J. Ren, R.B. Alley, I. Allison, J. Carrasco, G. Flato, Y. Fujii, G. Kaser, P. Mote, R.H. Thomas and T. Zhang, 2007: Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground Chapter 4 Table of Contents Executive Summary ..................................................... 339 4.7 Changes in Frozen Ground ............................. 369 4.7.1 Background .........................................................369 4.1 Introduction .......................................................... 341 4.7.2 Changes in Permafrost ........................................369 4.2 Changes in Snow Cover .................................... 343 4.7.3 Changes in Seasonally Frozen Ground ............... 372 4.2.1 Background .........................................................343 4.8 Synthesis ................................................................ 374 4.2.2 Observations of Snow Cover, Snow Duration and Snow Quantity? ............................................343 Frequently Asked Question 4.3 Changes in River and Lake Ice ...................... 346 FAQ 4.1: Is the Amount of Snow and Ice on the Earth Decreasing? .............................................. 376 4.3.1 Background .........................................................346 4.3.2 Changes in Freeze-up and Breakup Dates ......... 346 References ........................................................................ 378 4.4 Changes in Sea Ice .............................................. 350 4.4.1 Background .........................................................350 4.4.2 Sea Ice Extent and Concentration ....................... 350 4.4.3 Sea Ice Thickness................................................ 352 4.4.4 Pack Ice Motion ................................................... 355 4.5 Changes in Glaciers and Ice Caps ................ 356 4.5.1 Background .........................................................356 4.5.2 Large and Global-Scale Analyses ....................... 356 4.5.3 Special Regional Features ...................................359 4.6 Changes and Stability of Ice Sheets and Ice Shelves..................................................... 361 4.6.1 Background .........................................................361 4.6.2 Mass Balance of the Ice Sheets and Ice Shelves ..........................................................361 4.6.3 Causes of Changes .............................................366 Box 4.1: Ice Sheet Dynamics and Stability ......................... 367 338 Chapter 4 Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground Executive Summary • Submarine-derived data for the central Arctic indicate that the average sea ice thickness in the central Arctic has very likely decreased by up to 1 m from 1987 to In the climate system, the cryosphere (which consists of 1997. Model-based reconstructions support this, snow, river and lake ice, sea ice, glaciers and ice caps, ice suggesting an arctic-wide reduction of 0.6 to 0.9 m over shelves and ice sheets, and frozen ground) is intricately linked the same period. Large-scale trends prior to 1987 are to the surface energy budget, the water cycle, sea level change ambiguous. and the surface gas exchange. The cryosphere integrates climate variations over a wide range of time scales, making it a natural • Mass loss of glaciers and ice caps is estimated to be sensor of climate variability and providing a visible expression 0.50 ± 0.18 mm yr–1 in sea level equivalent (SLE) of climate change. In the past, the cryosphere has undergone between 1961 and 2004, and 0.77 ± 0.22 mm yr–1 large variations on many time scales associated with ice ages SLE between 1991 and 2004. The late 20th-century and with shorter-term variations like the Younger Dryas or the glacier wastage likely has been a response to post-1970 Little Ice Age (see Chapter 6). Recent decreases in ice mass warming. Strongest mass losses per unit area have been are correlated with rising surface air temperatures. This is observed in Patagonia, Alaska and northwest USA and especially true for the region north of 65°N, where temperatures southwest Canada. Because of the corresponding large have increased by about twice the global average from 1965 to areas, the biggest contributions to sea level rise came 2005. from Alaska, the Arctic and the Asian high mountains. • Snow cover has decreased in most regions, especially • Taken together, the ice sheets in Greenland and in spring and summer. Northern Hemisphere (NH) Antarctica have very likely been contributing to sea snow cover observed by satellite over the 1966 to 2005 level rise over 1993 to 2003. Thickening in central regions period decreased in every month except November and of Greenland has been more than offset by increased December, with a stepwise drop of 5% in the annual melting near the coast. Flow speed has increased for mean in the late 1980s. In the Southern Hemisphere, some Greenland and Antarctic outlet glaciers, which the few long records or proxies mostly show either drain ice from the interior. The corresponding increased decreases or no changes in the past 40 years or more. ice sheet mass loss has often followed thinning, reduction Where snow cover or snowpack decreased, temperature or loss of ice shelves or loss of fl oating glacier tongues. often dominated; where snow increased, precipitation Assessment of the data and techniques suggests a mass almost always dominated. For example, NH April snow balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet of between +25 and cover extent is strongly correlated with 40°N to 60°N –60 Gt yr–1 (–0.07 to 0.17 mm yr–1 SLE) from 1961 to April temperature, refl ecting the feedback between 2003, and –50 to –100 Gt yr–1 (0.14 to 0.28 mm yr–1 snow and temperature, and declines in the mountains SLE) from 1993 to 2003, with even larger losses in 2005. of western North America and in the Swiss Alps have Estimates for the overall mass balance of the Antarctic been largest at lower elevations. Ice Sheet range from +100 to –200 Gt yr–1 (–0.28 to 0.55 mm yr–1 SLE) for 1961 to 2003, and from +50 to • Freeze-up and breakup dates for river and lake ice –200 Gt yr–1 (–0.14 to 0.55 mm yr–1 SLE) for 1993 exhibit considerable spatial variability (with some to 2003. The recent changes in ice fl ow are likely to regions showing trends of opposite sign). Averaged be suffi cient to explain much or all of the estimated over available data for the NH spanning the past 150 antarctic mass imbalance, with changes in ice fl ow, years, freeze-up date has occurred later at a rate of snowfall and melt water runoff suffi cient to explain the 5.8 ± 1.6 days per century, while the breakup date has mass imbalance of Greenland. occurred earlier at a rate of 6.5 ± 1.2 days per century. (The uncertainty range given throughout this chapter • Temperature at the top of the permafrost layer has denotes the 5 to 95% confi dence interval.) increased by up to 3°C since the 1980s in the Arctic. The permafrost base has been thawing at a rate ranging • Satellite data indicate a continuation of the 2.7 ± 0.6% up to 0.04 m yr–1 in Alaska since 1992 and 0.02 m per decade decline in annual mean arctic sea ice extent yr–1 on the Tibetan Plateau since the 1960s. Permafrost since 1978. The decline for summer extent is larger degradation is leading to changes in land surface than for winter, with the summer minimum declining at characteristics and drainage systems. a rate of 7.4 ± 2.4% per decade since 1979. Other data indicate that the summer decline began around 1970. Similar observations in the Antarctic reveal larger interannual variability but no consistent trends. 339 Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground Chapter 4 • The maximum extent of seasonally frozen ground has decreased by about 7% in the NH from 1901 to 2002, with a decrease in