An assessment of precipitation changes over Antarctica and the Southern Ocean since 1989 in contemporary global reanalyses
This study evaluates the temporal variability of the Antarctic surface mass balance, approximated as precipitation-minus-evaporation (P-E), and Southern Ocean precipitation in five global reanalyses (NCEP-2, JRA-25, ERA-Interim, MERRA and CFSR) during 1989-2009. Reanalyses are known to be prone to s...
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American Meteorological Society
2011
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Online Access: | http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-003-483 https://doi.org/10.1175/2011JCLI4074.1 |
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ftncar:oai:drupal-site.org:articles_17521 2023-07-30T03:57:47+02:00 An assessment of precipitation changes over Antarctica and the Southern Ocean since 1989 in contemporary global reanalyses Bromwich, David (author) Nicolas, Julien (author) Monaghan, Andrew (author) 2011-08 application/pdf http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-003-483 https://doi.org/10.1175/2011JCLI4074.1 en eng American Meteorological Society Journal of Climate http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-003-483 doi:10.1175/2011JCLI4074.1 ark:/85065/d7ht2qmk Copyright 2011 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work. Text article 2011 ftncar https://doi.org/10.1175/2011JCLI4074.1 2023-07-17T18:14:58Z This study evaluates the temporal variability of the Antarctic surface mass balance, approximated as precipitation-minus-evaporation (P-E), and Southern Ocean precipitation in five global reanalyses (NCEP-2, JRA-25, ERA-Interim, MERRA and CFSR) during 1989-2009. Reanalyses are known to be prone to spurious trends and inhomogeneities caused by changes in the observing system, especially in the data-sparse high southern latitudes. The period of study has seen a dramatic increase in the amount of satellite observations used for data assimilation. The large positive and statistically significant trends in mean Antarctic P-E and mean Southern Ocean precipitation in NCEP-2, JRA-25 and MERRA are found to be largely spurious. The origin of these artifacts varies between the reanalyses. Notably, a precipitation jump in MERRA in the late 1990s coincides with the start of the assimilation of radiances from the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU). ERA-Interim and CFSR do not exhibit any significant trends. However, the potential impact of the assimilation of rain-affected radiances in ERA-Interim and inhomogeneities in CFSR pressure fields over Antarctica cast some doubt on the reliability of these two datasets. We conclude that ERA-Interim likely offers the most realistic depiction of precipitation changes in high southern latitudes during 1989-2009. The range of the trends in Antarctic P-E among the reanalyses is equivalent to 1 mm of sea level over 21 years, which highlights the improvements still needed in reanalysis simulations to better assess the contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise. Finally, this work argues for continuing cautious use of reanalysis datasets for climate change assessment. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Southern Ocean OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) Antarctic Southern Ocean The Antarctic Merra ENVELOPE(12.615,12.615,65.816,65.816) Journal of Climate 24 16 4189 4209 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) |
op_collection_id |
ftncar |
language |
English |
description |
This study evaluates the temporal variability of the Antarctic surface mass balance, approximated as precipitation-minus-evaporation (P-E), and Southern Ocean precipitation in five global reanalyses (NCEP-2, JRA-25, ERA-Interim, MERRA and CFSR) during 1989-2009. Reanalyses are known to be prone to spurious trends and inhomogeneities caused by changes in the observing system, especially in the data-sparse high southern latitudes. The period of study has seen a dramatic increase in the amount of satellite observations used for data assimilation. The large positive and statistically significant trends in mean Antarctic P-E and mean Southern Ocean precipitation in NCEP-2, JRA-25 and MERRA are found to be largely spurious. The origin of these artifacts varies between the reanalyses. Notably, a precipitation jump in MERRA in the late 1990s coincides with the start of the assimilation of radiances from the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU). ERA-Interim and CFSR do not exhibit any significant trends. However, the potential impact of the assimilation of rain-affected radiances in ERA-Interim and inhomogeneities in CFSR pressure fields over Antarctica cast some doubt on the reliability of these two datasets. We conclude that ERA-Interim likely offers the most realistic depiction of precipitation changes in high southern latitudes during 1989-2009. The range of the trends in Antarctic P-E among the reanalyses is equivalent to 1 mm of sea level over 21 years, which highlights the improvements still needed in reanalysis simulations to better assess the contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise. Finally, this work argues for continuing cautious use of reanalysis datasets for climate change assessment. |
author2 |
Bromwich, David (author) Nicolas, Julien (author) Monaghan, Andrew (author) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
title |
An assessment of precipitation changes over Antarctica and the Southern Ocean since 1989 in contemporary global reanalyses |
spellingShingle |
An assessment of precipitation changes over Antarctica and the Southern Ocean since 1989 in contemporary global reanalyses |
title_short |
An assessment of precipitation changes over Antarctica and the Southern Ocean since 1989 in contemporary global reanalyses |
title_full |
An assessment of precipitation changes over Antarctica and the Southern Ocean since 1989 in contemporary global reanalyses |
title_fullStr |
An assessment of precipitation changes over Antarctica and the Southern Ocean since 1989 in contemporary global reanalyses |
title_full_unstemmed |
An assessment of precipitation changes over Antarctica and the Southern Ocean since 1989 in contemporary global reanalyses |
title_sort |
assessment of precipitation changes over antarctica and the southern ocean since 1989 in contemporary global reanalyses |
publisher |
American Meteorological Society |
publishDate |
2011 |
url |
http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-003-483 https://doi.org/10.1175/2011JCLI4074.1 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(12.615,12.615,65.816,65.816) |
geographic |
Antarctic Southern Ocean The Antarctic Merra |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Southern Ocean The Antarctic Merra |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Southern Ocean |
op_relation |
Journal of Climate http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-003-483 doi:10.1175/2011JCLI4074.1 ark:/85065/d7ht2qmk |
op_rights |
Copyright 2011 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1175/2011JCLI4074.1 |
container_title |
Journal of Climate |
container_volume |
24 |
container_issue |
16 |
container_start_page |
4189 |
op_container_end_page |
4209 |
_version_ |
1772819275401134080 |