Identification

Title

Local and remote moisture sources both increase late twenty-first century Arctic precipitation

Abstract

Arctic precipitation increases in a warmer world as more moisture is available to condense. These increases in precipitation and moisture result from both local surface evaporation and remote transport. Despite ongoing efforts, the relative contribution of each moisture source to future Arctic precipitation change remains unknown. Here, new atmospheric model experiments are used to isolate the contributions of these two moisture sources to Arctic precipitation. During the preindustrial era, remote transport controls Arctic precipitation in all months. By the late twenty-first century, local surface evaporation becomes increasingly important due to local surface ocean warming and sea ice loss. In fact, late twenty-first century fall and winter precipitation increases are driven by these local surface ocean changes. In contrast, late twenty-first century moisture transport driven by nonlocal surface ocean warming entirely explains late twenty-first century summer precipitation increases. Furthermore, these new experiments show that late twenty-first century Arctic precipitation increases are directly driven by surface ocean warming and sea ice loss, indicating that surface ocean evaporation directly drives these increases rather than land-sourced moisture. Additionally, our experimental design enables an understanding and quantification of the coinfluence between local surface evaporation and remote moisture transport. This coinfluence acts to reduce late twenty-first century Arctic precipitation during the fall and early winter. Overall, these results show when and where surface ocean warming and sea ice loss affect future Arctic precipitation increases.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7n302d8

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2025-07-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact