Fig. 1.

Elements of a typical Greenland ice sheet model (blue) and possible interactions with the other components of the Earth system (orange). Mass exchange processes are shown in green. Changes in ice sheet size, mass and local ice thickness affect the properties of atmosphere, ocean and solid Earth and vice versa. Key processes for the ice sheet model itself are the ice temperature evolution and the flow of the ice caused by deformation and sliding, depending primarily on ice thickness, surface slope and ice temperature