Deciphering the Trend and Interannual Variability of Temperature and Precipitation Extremes over Greenland during 1958–2019

Abstract

Abstract Greenland experienced multiple extreme weather/climate events in recent decades that led to significant melting of the ice sheet. However, how the intensity of extreme climate events over Greenland varied under recent warming has not been fully examined. Here, we collect 176 in situ observations over Greenland and demonstrate that the observed extreme temperature/precipitation events over Greenland are well captured by the RACMO2.3p2 model, in terms of climatological distribution, interannual variability, and long-term trend. Thus, we then investigate the spatiotemporal features of extreme events over Greenland during 1958–2019, using the daily model outputs at 5.5-km resolution. The simulated annual maximum temperature exhibits a significant increasing trend (∼0.13°C decade−1) during 1958–2019, whereas there is a weakening trend (−0.24°C decade−1) in annual minimum temperature over Greenland, especially after the 1990s (−1.24°C decade−1). For the interannual variability, changes in temperature extremes between warm and cold temperature years share large similarities with the distributions of long-term trends. The extreme precipitation events measured by annual maximum daily precipitation amount show a profound increasing trend (0.52 mm day−1 decade−1) over northeastern Greenland during 1958–2019, with large interannual variability in the ice-free coastal region and southern Greenland. Additionally, the changes in extreme warm and cold events are generally linked with the variation of Greenland blocking in summer and Arctic polar vortex in winter, respectively, in terms of favorable circulation background, and the extreme precipitation events are often associated with the position of the polar jet stream.