Understanding atmospheric processes important to the water and energy cycles in the Arctic

This project will bring together atmospheric science groups from the Alfred Wegener Institute and the Norwegian Polar Institute to study processes in the Arctic atmosphere that affect the water cycle and energy budget. Work will involve observations, reanalysis data and regional climate models. The two groups have a developing collaboration, which we wish to strengthen, and complementary data and skill sets. In particular, combining AWI's long-term, high-quality datasets from Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard (supplemented by additional observations by NPI) and NPI's unique dataset from the N-ICE2015 campaign in the Arctic Ocean north of Svalbard in winter-spring 2015 (with contributions from AWI) will give this team, with observational and modelling expertise, valuable tools for studying this under-observed, rapidly changing region. The Arctic Region is in a state of change with rapidly warming temperatures and declining sea ice. Analyses of temperature and total water vapour from radiosonde records and several reanalysis products reveal trends in the Arctic towards a warmer and moister atmosphere. This project focuses on three topics related to the warming and moistening of the Arctic atmosphere and their impact on the complex feedbacks that affect Arctic amplification. The three topics we will address are: the causes of regional patterns of water vapour distribution (column integrated and vertical layering), its interannual variability and decadal trends; whether changes in the availability of water vapour contribute to changes in Arctic total precipitation and snowfall and how that may influence the sea ice cover; how changes in water vapour (and associated changes in clouds) modify the downward radiative and turbulent energy fluxes. The collaboration involves a mix of observationalists and modellers, providing excellent resources for combining tools and using the results to help improve models.