How Uncertainties in Precipitation Estimates are Mapped on to Our Understanding of the Relationship Between Arctic Precipitation and Arctic Sea Ice
Abstract
The objective of this study is to determine how reanalysis and satellite products capture the relationship between Arctic sea ice and Arctic precipitation. Sparse observations in the Arctic region have prevented this relationship from being evaluated rigorously in the past. We use several reanalyses and the latest version of the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) to perform our analysis. GPCP provides monthly long-term and uniformly distributed precipitation observations since 1979 and daily data since 1987. Sea ice decline is hypothesized to cause an increase in Arctic precipitation since sea ice loss is associated with more open water and warmer Arctic temperatures. For the purposes of this study, the Arctic's lower boundary is defined as 70 ̊N in order to focus on sea ice rather than land-based ice. Sea ice observations are obtained from Nimbus-7 SMMR data and Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) SSM/I-SSMIS products over the time period from 1979 to 2013. Precipitation measurements are obtained from the GPCP version 2.3. Preliminary results show a decrease in Arctic precipitation as the sea ice melt onset date increases during years with late melt onset. We will examine how the choice of precipitation product may affect this relationship or other relationships discussed in this presentation.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.C23D1585M
- Keywords:
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- 3349 Polar meteorology;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 0456 Life in extreme environments;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0750 Sea ice;
- CRYOSPHERE;
- 1620 Climate dynamics;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1621 Cryospheric change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1622 Earth system modeling;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1694 Instruments and techniques;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 4207 Arctic and Antarctic oceanography;
- OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL