Fig. 1. Observed Arctic atmospheric river (AR) trends.
a Arctic AR frequency trend during 1981–2021 in ERA5. The decomposed dynamical and thermodynamical contributions are shown in (b) and (c), respectively. d The observed trend in column-integrated water vapor (IWV) during 1981–2021 in ERA5. Stippled areas in (a), (b), (c), and (d) indicate significant trends at the 0.05 level based on the Student’s t-test. e Time series of area-average AR frequency over the Atlantic sector (solid lines; area outlined by the red box in (a) and Pacific sector (dashed lines; area outlined by the magenta box in (a). The black lines in (e) are the mean linear trends of the two reanalysis datasets (ERA5 and MERRA-2). The ensemble mean trends over both the Atlantic sector and Pacific sector are significant at the 0.05 level based on the Student’s t-test.