Quantifying Moisture Sources of Arctic Atmospheric Rivers During the Recent Historical Period

Ma, Weiming; Wang, Hailong; Zhang, Shixuan; Singh, Balwinder; Qian, Yun; Huo, Yiling; Feldl, Nicole; Audette, Alexandre

doi:10.1029/2025JD043918

Quantifying Moisture Sources of Arctic Atmospheric Rivers During the Recent Historical Period

Journal Article · Sat Nov 08 00:00:00 EST 2025 · Journal of Geophysical Research. Atmospheres

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JD043918· OSTI ID:3003979

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Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)

Atmospheric rivers (ARs), filaments of intense atmospheric moisture transport, play a significant role in delivering moisture poleward into the Arctic and triggering weather extremes. Although previous studies have focused on large‐scale circulations driving these events, this study investigates ARs through attributing their moisture sources using the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) with moisture‐tagging capability. Examining ARs in the Atlantic and Pacific sectors of the Arctic separately revealed distinct contributions from remote versus local, and ocean versus land, moisture sources. Unlike non‐AR events, Arctic ARs primarily draw moisture from their respective ocean basins in lower‐latitude regions during the cold season, and shift to land sources in the warm season. Cold‐season ARs in the Atlantic and Pacific sectors source 73.2% and 85.3% of their moisture from their respective ocean basins at lower latitudes, however warm‐season contributions decrease to 41.3% and 29.4%. In contrast, mid‐ and high‐latitude continents combined contribute 40.1% and 51.3% in the warm season. Trajectory clustering analysis shows that AR moisture sources depend on both their genesis regions and transport pathways. In recent decades, the Arctic has experienced a moistening trend in both the cold and warm seasons. Our results suggest that local and remote sources equally drive the observed cold‐season moistening, whereas remote sources predominantly drive the warm‐season moistening. A better understanding of Arctic AR moisture sources under current climate conditions provides valuable insights into their potential future changes amid the projected heterogeneous northern hemispheric warming.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities (SUF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231; AC05-76RL01830; SC0023070

OSTI ID:: 3003979

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 3005883

Report Number(s):: PNNL-SA--209642

Journal Information:: Journal of Geophysical Research. Atmospheres, Journal Name: Journal of Geophysical Research. Atmospheres Journal Issue: 21 Vol. 130; ISSN 2169-8996; ISSN 2169-897X

Publisher:: American Geophysical Union; WileyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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