Trends and spatial variation in rain-on-snow events over the Arctic Ocean during the early melt season
Rain-on-snow (ROS) events can accelerate the surface ablation of sea ice, thus greatly influencing the ice-albedo feedback. However, the variability of ROS events over the Arctic Ocean is poorly understood due to limited historical station data in this region. In this study early melt season ROS eve...
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:tcd87518 2023-05-15T13:11:17+02:00 Trends and spatial variation in rain-on-snow events over the Arctic Ocean during the early melt season Dou, Tingfeng Xiao, Cunde Liu, Jiping Wang, Qiang Pan, Shifeng Su, Jie Yuan, Xiaojun Ding, Minghu Zhang, Feng Xue, Kai Bieniek, Peter A. Eicken, Hajo 2020-08-28 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2020-214 https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2020-214/ eng eng doi:10.5194/tc-2020-214 https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2020-214/ eISSN: 1994-0424 Text 2020 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2020-214 2020-08-31T16:22:12Z Rain-on-snow (ROS) events can accelerate the surface ablation of sea ice, thus greatly influencing the ice-albedo feedback. However, the variability of ROS events over the Arctic Ocean is poorly understood due to limited historical station data in this region. In this study early melt season ROS events were investigated based on four widely-used reanalysis products (ERA-Interim, JRA-55, MERRA2 and ERA5) in conjunction with available observations at Arctic coastal stations. The performance of the reanalysis products in representing the timing of ROS events and the phase change of precipitation was assessed. Our results show that ERA-Interim better represents the onset date of ROS events in spring and ERA5 better represents the phase change of precipitation associated with ROS events. All reanalyses indicate that ROS event timing has shifted to earlier dates in recent decades (with maximum trends up to −4 to −6 days/decade in some regions in ERA-Interim), and that sea ice melt onset in the Pacific sector and most of the Eurasian marginal seas is correlated with this shift. There has been a clear transition from solid to liquid precipitation, leading to more ROS events in spring, although large discrepancies were found between different reanalysis products. In ERA5, the shift from solid to liquid precipitation phase during the early melt season has directly contributed to a reduction in spring snow depth on sea ice by more than −0.5 cm/decade averaged over the Arctic Ocean since 1980, with the largest contribution (about −2.0 cm/decade) in the Kara-Barents Seas and Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Text albedo Arctic Archipelago Arctic Arctic Ocean Canadian Arctic Archipelago Sea ice Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Arctic Arctic Ocean Canadian Arctic Archipelago Pacific |
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Open Polar |
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Copernicus Publications: E-Journals |
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ftcopernicus |
language |
English |
description |
Rain-on-snow (ROS) events can accelerate the surface ablation of sea ice, thus greatly influencing the ice-albedo feedback. However, the variability of ROS events over the Arctic Ocean is poorly understood due to limited historical station data in this region. In this study early melt season ROS events were investigated based on four widely-used reanalysis products (ERA-Interim, JRA-55, MERRA2 and ERA5) in conjunction with available observations at Arctic coastal stations. The performance of the reanalysis products in representing the timing of ROS events and the phase change of precipitation was assessed. Our results show that ERA-Interim better represents the onset date of ROS events in spring and ERA5 better represents the phase change of precipitation associated with ROS events. All reanalyses indicate that ROS event timing has shifted to earlier dates in recent decades (with maximum trends up to −4 to −6 days/decade in some regions in ERA-Interim), and that sea ice melt onset in the Pacific sector and most of the Eurasian marginal seas is correlated with this shift. There has been a clear transition from solid to liquid precipitation, leading to more ROS events in spring, although large discrepancies were found between different reanalysis products. In ERA5, the shift from solid to liquid precipitation phase during the early melt season has directly contributed to a reduction in spring snow depth on sea ice by more than −0.5 cm/decade averaged over the Arctic Ocean since 1980, with the largest contribution (about −2.0 cm/decade) in the Kara-Barents Seas and Canadian Arctic Archipelago. |
format |
Text |
author |
Dou, Tingfeng Xiao, Cunde Liu, Jiping Wang, Qiang Pan, Shifeng Su, Jie Yuan, Xiaojun Ding, Minghu Zhang, Feng Xue, Kai Bieniek, Peter A. Eicken, Hajo |
spellingShingle |
Dou, Tingfeng Xiao, Cunde Liu, Jiping Wang, Qiang Pan, Shifeng Su, Jie Yuan, Xiaojun Ding, Minghu Zhang, Feng Xue, Kai Bieniek, Peter A. Eicken, Hajo Trends and spatial variation in rain-on-snow events over the Arctic Ocean during the early melt season |
author_facet |
Dou, Tingfeng Xiao, Cunde Liu, Jiping Wang, Qiang Pan, Shifeng Su, Jie Yuan, Xiaojun Ding, Minghu Zhang, Feng Xue, Kai Bieniek, Peter A. Eicken, Hajo |
author_sort |
Dou, Tingfeng |
title |
Trends and spatial variation in rain-on-snow events over the Arctic Ocean during the early melt season |
title_short |
Trends and spatial variation in rain-on-snow events over the Arctic Ocean during the early melt season |
title_full |
Trends and spatial variation in rain-on-snow events over the Arctic Ocean during the early melt season |
title_fullStr |
Trends and spatial variation in rain-on-snow events over the Arctic Ocean during the early melt season |
title_full_unstemmed |
Trends and spatial variation in rain-on-snow events over the Arctic Ocean during the early melt season |
title_sort |
trends and spatial variation in rain-on-snow events over the arctic ocean during the early melt season |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2020-214 https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2020-214/ |
geographic |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Canadian Arctic Archipelago Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Canadian Arctic Archipelago Pacific |
genre |
albedo Arctic Archipelago Arctic Arctic Ocean Canadian Arctic Archipelago Sea ice |
genre_facet |
albedo Arctic Archipelago Arctic Arctic Ocean Canadian Arctic Archipelago Sea ice |
op_source |
eISSN: 1994-0424 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/tc-2020-214 https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2020-214/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2020-214 |
_version_ |
1766246671927214080 |