The disproportionate impact of enhanced evaporation from melting arctic sea ice on cold-season land precipitation trends

• Published in: npj Climate and Atmospheric Science
• Main Authors: Yubo Liu, Qiuhong Tang, Chi Zhang, Deliang Chen, Jennifer A. Francis, L. Ruby Leung, Hans W. Chen
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Portfolio 2024
• Subjects: Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Meteorology. Climatology; QC851-999; Sea ice; Siberia
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-024-00680-8; https://doaj.org/article/d7f63f7a7ef84b5f831e4114ca725cc7

Abstract Diminishing Arctic sea ice has led to enhanced evaporation from the Arctic marginal seas (AMS), which is expected to alter precipitation over land. In this work, AMS evaporation is numerically tracked to quantify its contribution to cold-season (October–March) precipitation over land in the Northern Hemisphere during 1980–2021. Results show a significant 32% increase in AMS moisture contribution to land precipitation, corresponding to a 16% increase per million square km loss of sea ice area. Especially over the high-latitude land, despite the fractional contribution of AMS to precipitation being relatively low (8%), the augmented AMS evaporation contributed disproportionately (42%) to the observed upward trend in precipitation. Notably, northern East Siberia exhibited a substantial rise in both the amount and fraction of extreme snowfall sourced from the AMS. Our findings underscore the importance of the progressively ice-free Arctic as an important contributor to the escalating levels of cold-season precipitation and snowfall over northern high-latitude land.