The atmospheric role in the Arctic water cycle: A review on processes, past and future changes, and their impacts
Atmospheric humidity, clouds, precipitation, and evapotranspiration are essential components of the Arctic climate system. During recent decades, specific humidity and precipitation have generally increased in the Arctic, but changes in evapotranspiration are poorly known. Trends in clouds vary depe...
Published in: | Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences |
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Language: | English |
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John Wiley & Sons
2016
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Online Access: | http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-022-823 https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JG003132 |
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ftncar:oai:drupal-site.org:articles_18389 2023-09-05T13:11:28+02:00 The atmospheric role in the Arctic water cycle: A review on processes, past and future changes, and their impacts Vihma, Timo (author) Screen, James (author) Tjernström, Michael (author) Newton, Brandi (author) Zhang, Xiangdong (author) Popova, Valeria (author) Deser, Clara (author) Holland, Marika (author) Prowse, Terry (author) 2016-03-01 application/pdf http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-022-823 https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JG003132 en eng John Wiley & Sons Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences articles:18389 ark:/85065/d7833tms http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-022-823 doi:10.1002/2015JG003132 Copyright 2016 American Geophysical Union. Text article 2016 ftncar https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JG003132 2023-08-14T18:47:03Z Atmospheric humidity, clouds, precipitation, and evapotranspiration are essential components of the Arctic climate system. During recent decades, specific humidity and precipitation have generally increased in the Arctic, but changes in evapotranspiration are poorly known. Trends in clouds vary depending on the region and season. Climate model experiments suggest that increases in precipitation are related to global warming. In turn, feedbacks associated with the increase in atmospheric moisture and decrease in sea ice and snow cover have contributed to the Arctic amplification of global warming. Climate models have captured the overall wetting trend but have limited success in reproducing regional details. For the rest of the 21st century, climate models project strong warming and increasing precipitation, but different models yield different results for changes in cloud cover. The model differences are largest in months of minimum sea ice cover. Evapotranspiration is projected to increase in winter but in summer to decrease over the oceans and increase over land. Increasing net precipitation increases river discharge to the Arctic Ocean. Over sea ice in summer, projected increase in rain and decrease in snowfall decrease the surface albedo and, hence, further amplify snow/ice surface melt. With reducing sea ice, wind forcing on the Arctic Ocean increases with impacts on ocean currents and freshwater transport out of the Arctic. Improvements in observations, process understanding, and modeling capabilities are needed to better quantify the atmospheric role in the Arctic water cycle and its changes. Article in Journal/Newspaper albedo Arctic Arctic Ocean Global warming Sea ice OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) Arctic Arctic Ocean Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 121 3 586 620 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) |
op_collection_id |
ftncar |
language |
English |
description |
Atmospheric humidity, clouds, precipitation, and evapotranspiration are essential components of the Arctic climate system. During recent decades, specific humidity and precipitation have generally increased in the Arctic, but changes in evapotranspiration are poorly known. Trends in clouds vary depending on the region and season. Climate model experiments suggest that increases in precipitation are related to global warming. In turn, feedbacks associated with the increase in atmospheric moisture and decrease in sea ice and snow cover have contributed to the Arctic amplification of global warming. Climate models have captured the overall wetting trend but have limited success in reproducing regional details. For the rest of the 21st century, climate models project strong warming and increasing precipitation, but different models yield different results for changes in cloud cover. The model differences are largest in months of minimum sea ice cover. Evapotranspiration is projected to increase in winter but in summer to decrease over the oceans and increase over land. Increasing net precipitation increases river discharge to the Arctic Ocean. Over sea ice in summer, projected increase in rain and decrease in snowfall decrease the surface albedo and, hence, further amplify snow/ice surface melt. With reducing sea ice, wind forcing on the Arctic Ocean increases with impacts on ocean currents and freshwater transport out of the Arctic. Improvements in observations, process understanding, and modeling capabilities are needed to better quantify the atmospheric role in the Arctic water cycle and its changes. |
author2 |
Vihma, Timo (author) Screen, James (author) Tjernström, Michael (author) Newton, Brandi (author) Zhang, Xiangdong (author) Popova, Valeria (author) Deser, Clara (author) Holland, Marika (author) Prowse, Terry (author) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
title |
The atmospheric role in the Arctic water cycle: A review on processes, past and future changes, and their impacts |
spellingShingle |
The atmospheric role in the Arctic water cycle: A review on processes, past and future changes, and their impacts |
title_short |
The atmospheric role in the Arctic water cycle: A review on processes, past and future changes, and their impacts |
title_full |
The atmospheric role in the Arctic water cycle: A review on processes, past and future changes, and their impacts |
title_fullStr |
The atmospheric role in the Arctic water cycle: A review on processes, past and future changes, and their impacts |
title_full_unstemmed |
The atmospheric role in the Arctic water cycle: A review on processes, past and future changes, and their impacts |
title_sort |
atmospheric role in the arctic water cycle: a review on processes, past and future changes, and their impacts |
publisher |
John Wiley & Sons |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-022-823 https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JG003132 |
geographic |
Arctic Arctic Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean |
genre |
albedo Arctic Arctic Ocean Global warming Sea ice |
genre_facet |
albedo Arctic Arctic Ocean Global warming Sea ice |
op_relation |
Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences articles:18389 ark:/85065/d7833tms http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-022-823 doi:10.1002/2015JG003132 |
op_rights |
Copyright 2016 American Geophysical Union. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JG003132 |
container_title |
Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences |
container_volume |
121 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
586 |
op_container_end_page |
620 |
_version_ |
1776204826113212416 |