Moisture origin, transport pathways, and driving processes of intense wintertime moisture transport into the Arctic
A substantial portion of the moisture transport into the Arctic occurs in episodic, high-amplitude events with strong impacts on the Arctic's climate system components such as sea ice. This study focuses on the origin of such moist-air intrusions during winter and examines the moisture sources,...
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ftethz:oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/583024 2023-05-15T15:01:54+02:00 Moisture origin, transport pathways, and driving processes of intense wintertime moisture transport into the Arctic Papritz, Lukas Hauswirth, David Hartmuth, Katharina 2022 application/application/pdf https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/583024 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000583024 en eng Copernicus info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.5194/wcd-3-1-2022 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/787652 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/583024 doi:10.3929/ethz-b-000583024 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International CC-BY Weather and Climate Dynamics, 3 (1) info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 2022 ftethz https://doi.org/20.500.11850/583024 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000583024 https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-1-2022 2023-02-20T00:40:33Z A substantial portion of the moisture transport into the Arctic occurs in episodic, high-amplitude events with strong impacts on the Arctic's climate system components such as sea ice. This study focuses on the origin of such moist-air intrusions during winter and examines the moisture sources, moisture transport pathways, and their linkage to the driving large-scale circulation patterns. For that purpose, 597 moist-air intrusions, defined as daily events of intense (exceeding the 90th anomaly percentile) zonal mean moisture transport into the polar cap (≥70° N), are identified. Kinematic backward trajectories combined with a Lagrangian moisture source diagnostic are then used to pinpoint the moisture sources and characterize the airstreams accomplishing the transport. The moisture source analyses show that the bulk of the moisture transported into the polar cap during these moist-air intrusions originates in the eastern North Atlantic with an uptake maximum poleward of 50° N. Trajectories further reveal an inverse relationship between moisture uptake latitude and the level at which moisture is injected into the polar cap, consistent with ascent of poleward-flowing air in a baroclinic atmosphere. Focusing on intrusions in the North Atlantic (424 intrusions), we find that lower tropospheric moisture transport is predominantly accomplished by two types of airstreams: (i) cold, polar air warmed and moistened by surface fluxes and (ii) air subsiding from the mid-troposphere into the boundary layer. Both airstreams contribute about 36 % each to the total transport. The former accounts for most of the moisture transport during intrusions associated with an anomalously high frequency of cyclones east of Greenland (218 intrusions), whereas the latter is more important in the presence of atmospheric blocking over Scandinavia and the Ural Mountains (145 events). Long-range moisture transport, accounting for 17 % of the total transport, dominates during intrusions with weak forcing by baroclinic weather systems (64 ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Greenland North Atlantic Sea ice ural mountains ETH Zürich Research Collection Arctic Greenland |
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Open Polar |
collection |
ETH Zürich Research Collection |
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ftethz |
language |
English |
description |
A substantial portion of the moisture transport into the Arctic occurs in episodic, high-amplitude events with strong impacts on the Arctic's climate system components such as sea ice. This study focuses on the origin of such moist-air intrusions during winter and examines the moisture sources, moisture transport pathways, and their linkage to the driving large-scale circulation patterns. For that purpose, 597 moist-air intrusions, defined as daily events of intense (exceeding the 90th anomaly percentile) zonal mean moisture transport into the polar cap (≥70° N), are identified. Kinematic backward trajectories combined with a Lagrangian moisture source diagnostic are then used to pinpoint the moisture sources and characterize the airstreams accomplishing the transport. The moisture source analyses show that the bulk of the moisture transported into the polar cap during these moist-air intrusions originates in the eastern North Atlantic with an uptake maximum poleward of 50° N. Trajectories further reveal an inverse relationship between moisture uptake latitude and the level at which moisture is injected into the polar cap, consistent with ascent of poleward-flowing air in a baroclinic atmosphere. Focusing on intrusions in the North Atlantic (424 intrusions), we find that lower tropospheric moisture transport is predominantly accomplished by two types of airstreams: (i) cold, polar air warmed and moistened by surface fluxes and (ii) air subsiding from the mid-troposphere into the boundary layer. Both airstreams contribute about 36 % each to the total transport. The former accounts for most of the moisture transport during intrusions associated with an anomalously high frequency of cyclones east of Greenland (218 intrusions), whereas the latter is more important in the presence of atmospheric blocking over Scandinavia and the Ural Mountains (145 events). Long-range moisture transport, accounting for 17 % of the total transport, dominates during intrusions with weak forcing by baroclinic weather systems (64 ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Papritz, Lukas Hauswirth, David Hartmuth, Katharina |
spellingShingle |
Papritz, Lukas Hauswirth, David Hartmuth, Katharina Moisture origin, transport pathways, and driving processes of intense wintertime moisture transport into the Arctic |
author_facet |
Papritz, Lukas Hauswirth, David Hartmuth, Katharina |
author_sort |
Papritz, Lukas |
title |
Moisture origin, transport pathways, and driving processes of intense wintertime moisture transport into the Arctic |
title_short |
Moisture origin, transport pathways, and driving processes of intense wintertime moisture transport into the Arctic |
title_full |
Moisture origin, transport pathways, and driving processes of intense wintertime moisture transport into the Arctic |
title_fullStr |
Moisture origin, transport pathways, and driving processes of intense wintertime moisture transport into the Arctic |
title_full_unstemmed |
Moisture origin, transport pathways, and driving processes of intense wintertime moisture transport into the Arctic |
title_sort |
moisture origin, transport pathways, and driving processes of intense wintertime moisture transport into the arctic |
publisher |
Copernicus |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/583024 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000583024 |
geographic |
Arctic Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Greenland |
genre |
Arctic Greenland North Atlantic Sea ice ural mountains |
genre_facet |
Arctic Greenland North Atlantic Sea ice ural mountains |
op_source |
Weather and Climate Dynamics, 3 (1) |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.5194/wcd-3-1-2022 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/787652 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/583024 doi:10.3929/ethz-b-000583024 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/20.500.11850/583024 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000583024 https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-1-2022 |
_version_ |
1766333898507157504 |