Extreme Precipitation in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland: An Evaluation of Atmospheric Reanalyses
Extreme precipitation events are becoming more common in the Arctic as the climate warms, but characterizing these events is notoriously challenging. Atmospheric reanalyses have become popular tools for climate studies in data-sparse regions such as the Arctic. While modern reanalyses have been show...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.866929 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.866929/full |
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crfrontiers:10.3389/fenvs.2022.866929 2024-09-09T19:19:58+00:00 Extreme Precipitation in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland: An Evaluation of Atmospheric Reanalyses Loeb, Nicole A. Crawford, Alex Stroeve, Julienne C. Hanesiak, John 2022 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.866929 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.866929/full unknown Frontiers Media SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Frontiers in Environmental Science volume 10 ISSN 2296-665X journal-article 2022 crfrontiers https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.866929 2024-08-13T04:05:49Z Extreme precipitation events are becoming more common in the Arctic as the climate warms, but characterizing these events is notoriously challenging. Atmospheric reanalyses have become popular tools for climate studies in data-sparse regions such as the Arctic. While modern reanalyses have been shown to perform reasonably well at reproducing Arctic climate, their ability to represent extreme precipitation events has not been investigated in depth. In this study, three of the most recent reanalyses, ERA-5, MERRA-2, and CFSR, are compared to surface precipitation observations in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland from 1980 to 2016 to assess how well they represent the most intense observed events. Overall, the reanalyses struggled to match observed accumulations from individual events (−0.11 ≤ r ≤ 0.47) but matched the observed seasonality of precipitation extremes. The region with the strongest match between observations and reanalyses was Southwest Greenland. Performance varies by event, and the best match between reanalyses and station observations may have a spatial/temporal offset (up to one grid cell or 1 day). The three products saw similar performance in general; however, ERA-5 tends to see slightly higher correlations and lower biases than MERRA-2 or CFSR. Considering the limitations of in situ observations, these results suggest that the reanalyses are capable of representing aggregate extreme precipitation (e.g., seasonal or annual time scales), but struggle to consistently match the timing and location of specific observed events. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Greenland Frontiers (Publisher) Arctic Greenland Merra ENVELOPE(12.615,12.615,65.816,65.816) Frontiers in Environmental Science 10 |
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Extreme precipitation events are becoming more common in the Arctic as the climate warms, but characterizing these events is notoriously challenging. Atmospheric reanalyses have become popular tools for climate studies in data-sparse regions such as the Arctic. While modern reanalyses have been shown to perform reasonably well at reproducing Arctic climate, their ability to represent extreme precipitation events has not been investigated in depth. In this study, three of the most recent reanalyses, ERA-5, MERRA-2, and CFSR, are compared to surface precipitation observations in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland from 1980 to 2016 to assess how well they represent the most intense observed events. Overall, the reanalyses struggled to match observed accumulations from individual events (−0.11 ≤ r ≤ 0.47) but matched the observed seasonality of precipitation extremes. The region with the strongest match between observations and reanalyses was Southwest Greenland. Performance varies by event, and the best match between reanalyses and station observations may have a spatial/temporal offset (up to one grid cell or 1 day). The three products saw similar performance in general; however, ERA-5 tends to see slightly higher correlations and lower biases than MERRA-2 or CFSR. Considering the limitations of in situ observations, these results suggest that the reanalyses are capable of representing aggregate extreme precipitation (e.g., seasonal or annual time scales), but struggle to consistently match the timing and location of specific observed events. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Loeb, Nicole A. Crawford, Alex Stroeve, Julienne C. Hanesiak, John |
spellingShingle |
Loeb, Nicole A. Crawford, Alex Stroeve, Julienne C. Hanesiak, John Extreme Precipitation in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland: An Evaluation of Atmospheric Reanalyses |
author_facet |
Loeb, Nicole A. Crawford, Alex Stroeve, Julienne C. Hanesiak, John |
author_sort |
Loeb, Nicole A. |
title |
Extreme Precipitation in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland: An Evaluation of Atmospheric Reanalyses |
title_short |
Extreme Precipitation in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland: An Evaluation of Atmospheric Reanalyses |
title_full |
Extreme Precipitation in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland: An Evaluation of Atmospheric Reanalyses |
title_fullStr |
Extreme Precipitation in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland: An Evaluation of Atmospheric Reanalyses |
title_full_unstemmed |
Extreme Precipitation in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland: An Evaluation of Atmospheric Reanalyses |
title_sort |
extreme precipitation in the eastern canadian arctic and greenland: an evaluation of atmospheric reanalyses |
publisher |
Frontiers Media SA |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.866929 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.866929/full |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(12.615,12.615,65.816,65.816) |
geographic |
Arctic Greenland Merra |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Greenland Merra |
genre |
Arctic Greenland |
genre_facet |
Arctic Greenland |
op_source |
Frontiers in Environmental Science volume 10 ISSN 2296-665X |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.866929 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Environmental Science |
container_volume |
10 |
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1809760058915946496 |