24th Pacific Science Congress (PSC-24)

Increasing Arctic rainfall significantly impacts snow and ice processes, land runoff, and the ecological environment. However, the extent to which the rainfall increase is regionally dependent and how it responds to the large retreat of sea ice remains inadequately understood. This study quantifies the Arctic land rainfall increases attributable to sea ice loss under 2°C global warming using multi-ensemble experiments combining all forcing with sea ice loss forcing. The findings indicate that sea ice retreat is responsible for 16% of the increase in summer Arctic land rainfall, with significant increases covering 46% of the region responses to 2°C warming. The most pronounced responses were observed along the Arctic coasts of Siberia and North America. Local warming caused by sea ice retreat contributes 68% of the rainfall increase, while the remainder results from the increase in total precipitation.

Arctic,Sea ice,Precipitation,Local warming