Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Atmospheric Rivers: A Modeling Perspective

Abstract

AbstractAtmospheric rivers (ARs) play a crucial role in the poleward transport of water vapor, and the AR‐associated precipitation is a critical component of global water supplies, making it critical that we understand how ARs may change in the future. To approach this issue, integrations of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies global climate model ModelE version 2.1 (GISSE2.1) are employed. Multiple configurations of the model simulating different climates are analyzed: (a) the last‐glacial maximum; (b) present day; (c) the end of the 21st century. The thermodynamic and dynamic components of changes to AR frequency are analyzed using a decomposition method. This method utilizes differences in distinct AR seasonal climatology frequencies derived from various vertically integrated water vapor transport (IVT) thresholds to resolve AR frequency into its components. Global mean state changes in poleward AR frequency for different climates are dominated by precipitable water vapor (PWV) changes. A set of idealized cold and warm climates in which present day sea surface temperatures are uniformly changed are considered for a targeted analysis of the south Pacific Ocean basin. For this analysis, frequency and distribution of AR events in the model runs are analyzed by comparing them to changes in the jet stream as well as the Eulerian storm tracks and low‐level baroclinicity. Latitudinal shifts in the ARs in the south Pacific Ocean basin using our integrations are not as tightly coupled to these two storm‐related climatological metrics in the midlatitudes but fare better on the poleward side of the storm tracks.