Ratio of the Greenland to global temperature change: Comparison of observations and climate modeling results

Abstract

Temperature changes over Greenland are of special interest due to a possible melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and resulting sea level rise. General Circulation Models (GCMs) predict that the temperature changes in Greenland should proceed at a faster rate than the global temperature change. Until now there has been no confirmation that Greenland's long term temperature changes are related to the global warming and that they proceed faster than the global temperature change. Using double correlations between the Greeland temperature records, North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index and global temperature change we find a region of Greenland that is not affected by the NAO. Using this region as an indicator of Greenland's temparature change that is related to global warming, we find that the ratio of the Greenland to global temperature change due to global warming is 2.2 in broad agreement with GCM predictions. Copyright 2005 by the American Geophysical Union.