Capturing Antarctic Precipitation With a 3D Atmospheric River Algorithm

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Abstract
Atmospheric rivers (ARs) typically lead to intense precipitation and play an essential role in the Antarctic ice surface mass balance. Their detection in the Antarctic region is challenging, preventing consistent evaluation of their role at a global scale. In this study, we extended a conventional method and developed a new three‐dimensional AR detection algorithm, which we applied over Antarctica. The results showed that the detected ARs at Dome Fuji during the 44th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition were associated with more than half of the significant precipitation events and contributed to approximately 40% of the total precipitation. Climatologically, from 1979 to 2023, the ARs occurred less than 10% of the time but contributed to 30%–60% of the annual total precipitation. Furthermore, AR‐related precipitation effectively captured the regional variability of long‐term trends in Antarctic precipitation, indicating that ARs exert substantial control over Antarctic precipitation variability.
Funding Information
  • Japan Science and Technology Agency (JPMJSP2104)
  • Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (23H00523)
  • Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (24H02341)

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