Role of atmospheric rivers in shaping long term Arctic moisture variability

Zhibiao Wang, Qinghua Ding (), Renguang Wu, Thomas J. Ballinger (), Bin Guan, Deniz Bozkurt, Deanna Nash, Ian Baxter, Dániel Topál, Zhe Li, Gang Huang, Wen Chen, Shangfeng Chen, Xi Cao and Zhang Chen
Additional contact information
Zhibiao Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Qinghua Ding: University of California, Santa Barbara
Renguang Wu: Zhejiang University
Thomas J. Ballinger: University of Alaska Fairbanks
Bin Guan: University of California, Los Angeles
Deniz Bozkurt: University of Valparaíso
Deanna Nash: University of California San Diego
Ian Baxter: University of California, Santa Barbara
Dániel Topál: Université catholique de Louvain
Zhe Li: University of California, Santa Barbara
Gang Huang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Wen Chen: Yunnan University
Shangfeng Chen: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xi Cao: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhang Chen: Chengdu University of Information Technology

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Atmospheric rivers (ARs) reaching high-latitudes in summer contribute to the majority of climatological poleward water vapor transport into the Arctic. This transport has exhibited long term changes over the past decades, which cannot be entirely explained by anthropogenic forcing according to ensemble model responses. Here, through observational analyses and model experiments in which winds are adjusted to match observations, we demonstrate that low-frequency, large-scale circulation changes in the Arctic play a decisive role in regulating AR activity and thus inducing the recent upsurge of this activity in the region. It is estimated that the trend in summertime AR activity may contribute to 36% of the increasing trend of atmospheric summer moisture over the entire Arctic since 1979 and account for over half of the humidity trends in certain areas experiencing significant recent warming, such as western Greenland, northern Europe, and eastern Siberia. This indicates that AR activity, mostly driven by strong synoptic weather systems often regarded as stochastic, may serve as a vital mechanism in regulating long term moisture variability in the Arctic.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49857-y

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