资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Greenland ice sheet rainfall is expected to increase under a warming climate. Yet, here have been no active long-term in-situ rainfall records on the ice sheet due to observational difficulties. Here, we utilize the state-of-the-art 5 km polar non-hydrostatic regional climate model NHM-SMAP to evaluate the ice sheet’s rainfall over 40 years (1980 to 2019). The largest trends include a fourfold increase in annual rainfall for the northwestern ice sheet; 3.1 Gt year^-1 or 12 mm m^–2 year^–1. September ice-sheet-wide rainfall amount and intensity increase by 7.5 Gt month^-1 and 20.8 mm hr^-1 year^-1. In the last two decades, the increasing September maximum hourly rainfall rate exceeded 50 mm hr^–1 six times. The increased surface water delivery has numerous implications, including for snow metamorphism and ice flow dynamics.