Lagrangian detection of precipitation moisture sources for an arid region in northeast Greenland: relations to the North Atlantic Oscillation, sea ice cover, and temporal trends from 1979 to 2017

Abstract

Temperature in northeast Greenland is expected to rise at a faster rate than the global average as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change. Associated with this temperature rise, precipitation is also expected to increase as a result of increased evaporation from a warmer and ice-free Arctic Ocean. In recent years, numerous palaeoclimate projects have begun working in the region with the aim of improving our understanding of how this highly sensitive region responds to a warmer world. However, a lack of meteorological stations within the area makes it difficult to place the palaeoclimate records in the context of present-day climate. This study aims to improve our understanding of precipitation and moisture source dynamics over a small arid region located at 80∘ N in northeast Greenland. The origin of water vapour for precipitation over the study region is detected by a Lagrangian moisture source diagnostic, which is applied to reanalysis data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ERA-Interim) from 1979 to 2017. While precipitation amounts are relatively constant during the year, the regional moisture sources display a strong seasonality. The most dominant winter moisture sources are the North Atlantic above 45∘ N and the ice-free Atlantic sector of the Arctic Ocean, while in summer the patterns shift towards local and north Eurasian continental sources. During the positive phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), evaporation and moisture transport from the Norwegian Sea are stronger, resulting in larger and more variable precipitation amounts. Testing the hypothesis that retreating sea ice will lead to an increase in moisture supply remains challenging based on our data. However, we found that moisture sources are increasing in the case of retreating sea ice for some regions, in particular in October to December. Although the annual mean surface temperature in the study region has increased by 0.7 ∘C per decade (95 % confidence interval [0.4, 1.0] ∘C per decade) according to ERA-Interim data, we do not detect any change in the amount of precipitation with the exception of autumn where precipitation increases by 8.2 [0.8, 15.5] mm per decade over the period. This increase is consistent with future predicted Arctic precipitation change. Moisture source trends for other months and regions were non-existent or small.