| Summary: | The Arctic is a hotspot of climate change and is currently undergoing rapid changes in particular in its snow and sea-ice cover, and near-surface air temperature. While observations document these changes, the underlying processes and feedbacks contributing to this phenomenon called Arctic amplification are not fully understood, and limit our ability to predict the future evolution of the Arctic climate system.Within this presentation, the 20+ year climate data record of the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) project will be used to analyze changes of the surface radiation budget across the Arctic, and investigate the role of clouds in these changes. The focus is directed to the identification of significant trends in contrast to internal climate variability. Attention is also directed to regional contrasts and the seasonality of changes. Results are combined with and contrasted to the ERA5 reanalysis, attempting to reconcile differences and interpreting these changes as part of the Arctic surface energy budget.Subsequently, our results are used to provide context for the observations of the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC ) expedition. Specifically, we will attempt to answer the following questions: do MOSAiC observations confirm the CERES and ERA5 data sets in terms of cloud radiative effects? Given the availability of 20 years of CERES data before MOSAiC: would we have expected significant differences in the MOSAiC observations of clouds and radiative fluxes, if the expedition had taken place at the start of the CERES data record?
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