Abstract. Perennial snow, or firn, covers 80 % of the Greenland ice sheet and has the capacity to retain surface meltwater, influencing the ice sheet mass balance and contribution to sea-level rise. Multilayer firn models are traditionally used to simulate firn processes and estimate meltwater retention. We present, intercompare and evaluate outputs from nine firn models at four sites that represent the ice sheet's dry snow, percolation, ice slab and firn aquifer areas. The models are forced by mass and energy fluxes derived from automatic weather stations and compared to firn density, temperature and meltwater percolation depth observations. Models agree relatively well at the dry-snow site while elsewhere their meltwater infiltration schemes lead to marked differences in simulated firn characteristics. Models accounting for deep meltwater percolation overestimate percolation depth and firn temperature at the percolation and ice slab sites but accurately simulate recharge of the firn aquifer. Models using Darcy's law and bucket schemes compare favorably to observed firn temperature and meltwater percolation depth at the percolation site, but only the Darcy models accurately simulate firn temperature and percolation at the ice slab site. Despite good performance at certain locations, no single model currently simulates meltwater infiltration adequately at all sites. The model spread in estimated meltwater retention and runoff increases with increasing meltwater input. The highest runoff was calculated at the KAN_U site in 2012, when average total runoff across models (±2σ) was 353±610 mm w.e. (water equivalent), about 27±48 % of the surface meltwater input. We identify potential causes for the model spread and the mismatch with observations and provide recommendations for future model development and firn investigation.

Meltwater refreezing and storage in the supraglacial snowpack can reduce and delay meltwater runoff from glaciers. These are well-established processes in polar environments, but the importance of meltwater refreezing and the efficiency of meltwater drainage are uncertain on temperate alpine glaciers. To examine these processes and quantify their importance on a mid-latitude mountain glacier, we measured the temperature and meltwater content in the upper 50 cm of the supraglacial snowpack of Haig Glacier in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Thermistors and Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) probes were installed at 10-cm intervals at two sites in the glacier accumulation area from May to September, 2015. A Denoth meter was used to make point measurements for comparison with the TDR inferences of snowpack dielectric properties. These data are supplemented by automatic weather station data, used to calculate surface melt rates and drive a model of subsurface temperature, refreezing, and drainage. We observed a strong diurnal cycle in snow water content throughout the summer melt season, but subsurface refreezing was only significant in May; after this, overnight refreezing was restricted to a thin surface layer of the snowpack. Overnight decreases in water content after May are associated with meltwater percolation and drainage. There was negligible meltwater retention in the snow on a daily basis, but the refrozen water does represent an "energy sink," with 10-15% of the available melt energy diverted to melting refrozen meltwater. This reduces the total meltwater runoff from the site, even though no meltwater is retained in the system.

Meltwater retention in the firn layer of the Greenland Ice Sheet has the potential to buffer sea level rise due to ice sheet melt. The capacity of the firn layer to store meltwater is unclear, however, because refrozen ice layers can act as impermeable barriers to meltwater percolation, promoting runoff rather than retention. We present time domain reflectometry and thermistor data, which demonstrate that meltwater successfully penetrates ice layers up to 12 cm thick in the near‐surface firn at DYE‐2, Greenland. Our observations indicate that ice layers within polar firn can be permeable when summer warming and latent heat release from meltwater refreezing raise firn temperatures to the melting point. The extent and depth of refreezing, as determined by the coupled thermodynamic and hydrological evolution in the firn, are more important than the presence of ice layers in governing meltwater infiltration and retention at our study site.

Surface meltwater can be retained in an ice sheet if it infiltrates the firn and refreezes. This is an important mass balance process for the Greenland Ice Sheet, reducing meltwater runoff and associated sea-level rise. The processes of meltwater infiltration and refreezing are not fully understood, however, and remain difficult to monitor remotely. We deployed vertical arrays of thermistors and time-domain reflectometry (TDR) probes to 4-m depth in the firn to continuously monitor meltwater infiltration and refreezing processes at DYE-2, Greenland. The observations provide a detailed picture of the coupled thermal and hydrological evolution of the firn through the 2016 melt season, including estimates of firn water content. The thaw and wetting fronts reached a maximum depth of 1.8 m, with meltwater infiltration concentrated in four main pulses of melting and subsurface warming that reached progressively deeper into the firn. The observations were used to constrain a coupled model of firn thermodynamics and hydrology, which was then run over the period 1950-2020, driven by meteorological forcing from GC-Net station data and ERA5 climate reanalyses. Model results suggest that decadal-scale firn evolution at DYE-2 is strongly influenced by extreme melt seasons such as those of 1968, 2012, and 2019, when meltwater infiltration reached depths of 6-7 m. Extreme melt years drive increases in firn temperature, ice content, and density, reducing firn meltwater retention capacity. Such processes are likely to govern future meltwater retention as the percolation zone extends to higher elevations in Greenland in the coming decades.Plain Language Summary On polar ice sheets, the vast majority of surface meltwater either runs off to the ocean or is refrozen in porous layers of snow and firn. These processes are important to understand across the Greenland Ice Sheet because they influence how much meltwater contributes to sea level rise versus being retained within the ice sheet in any given year. However, the subsurface nature of meltwater percolation and refreezing makes these processes difficult to accurately monitor, and the conditions that control meltwater retention are also evolving with the changing climate. In the spring of 2016, we deployed a novel array of buried temperature and wetness sensors in the snow and firn at the DYE-2 site in Greenland to monitor the infiltration and refreezing of meltwater in firn, as well as a meteorological station at the surface to collect weather and radiation data. The station measured the evolution of firn structure and temperature over a full annual cycle of melting and refreezing. We used the field measurements to constrain a computer model that simulates firn density, melt, and refreezing processes at the same location in Greenland from 1950 through 2020, based upon historical climate reconstructions. We find that, while large summer melt events appear periodically in the long-term record, including a notable melt summer in 1968, recent extreme melt events at DYE-2 in 2012 and 2...

Abstract. Perennial snow, or firn, covers 80 % of the Greenland ice sheet and has the capacity to retain part of the surface meltwater, buffering the ice sheet’s contribution to sea level. Multi-layer firn models are traditionally used to simulate the firn processes and estimate meltwater retention. We present the output from nine firn models, forced by weather-station-derived mass and energy fluxes at four sites representative of the dry snow, percolation, ice slab and firn aquifer areas. We compare the model outputs and evaluate them against in situ observations. Models that explicitly account for deep meltwater percolation overestimate percolation depth and consequently firn temperature at the percolation and ice slab sites although they accurately simulate the recharge of the firn aquifer. Models using Darcy's law and a bucket scheme compare favourably to observations at the percolation site but only the Darcy models accurately simulate firn temperature and thus meltwater percolation at the ice slab site. We find that Eulerian models, that transfer firn through fixed layers, smooth sharp gradients in firn temperature and density over time. From the model spread, we find that simulated densities (respectively temperature) have an uncertainty envelope of ±60 kg m−3 (resp. ±14 °C) in the dry snow area and up to ±280 kg m−3 (resp. ±15–18 °C) at warmer sites.