Precipitation influence on and response to early and late Arctic sea ice melt onset during melt season

The region containing portions of the East Siberian Sea and Laptev Sea (73°–84°N, 90°–155°E) is the area of focus (AOF) for this study. The impacts of precipitation, latent heat (LH) and sensible heat (SH) fluxes on sea ice melt onset in the AOF are investigated. Four early melting years (1990, 2012...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of climatology 2022-01, Vol.42 (1), p.81-96
Main Authors: Marcovecchio, Alexa, Behrangi, Ali, Dong, Xiquan, Xi, Baike, Huang, Yiyi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anomalies
Arctic
Arctic precipitation
Arctic sea ice
Enthalpy
Evaporation
Fluctuations
Hydrologic data
Ice melting
Latent heat
melt onset
Melting
Polar environments
Precipitation
Precipitation data
Precipitation variations
reanalysis
Sea ice
Seasonal precipitation
Seasons
Sensible heat
Snowfall
Trends
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Summary:The region containing portions of the East Siberian Sea and Laptev Sea (73°–84°N, 90°–155°E) is the area of focus (AOF) for this study. The impacts of precipitation, latent heat (LH) and sensible heat (SH) fluxes on sea ice melt onset in the AOF are investigated. Four early melting years (1990, 2012, 2003, and 1991) and four late melting years (1982, 1983, 1984, and 1996) are compared to better identify the different responses to melt onset timing. A consistency check is performed between multiple Arctic precipitation products (including NASA MERRA‐2, ECMWF ERA‐Interim [ERA‐I], and ECMWF ERA5 reanalyses as well as GPCP V2.3 observations) since there is not yet a high‐quality ground‐truth Arctic precipitation data product. MERRA‐2 has the greatest monthly average precipitation, snowfall, evaporation, and net LH flux. ERA‐I suggests that liquid precipitation starts earlier in the year than MERRA‐2 and ERA5, while GPCP shows different seasonal precipitation variations from the reanalyses. MERRA‐2 has the clearest and most amplified seasonal trends for the parameters used in this study, so the daily time series and anomalies of MERRA‐2 variables before and after the first major melt event are investigated. ERA5 is used to check these results because ERA‐I and ERA5 display similar seasonal trends. According to MERRA‐2, during early melt years, surface SH flux loss and precipitation are above average in the days before and after the first major melt event. During late melt years, surface SH flux loss and precipitation are below average in the month leading up to the first major melt event. The impacts of precipitation, latent heat (LH), and sensible heat (SH) fluxes on early and late sea ice melt onset are investigated within the area of focus shown in this image. Multiple Arctic precipitation products are compared. MERRA‐2 shows early melt years have above average surface SH flux loss and precipitation in the days surrounding the first major melt event. Late melt years have below average surface SH flux loss and precipitation in the month before the first melt event.
ISSN:0899-8418
1097-0088
DOI:10.1002/joc.7233