Barthelemy et al. (2025) Future Atmospheric Rivers in Antarctica: Characteristics and Impacts With the IPSL Model

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-26
• Authors: Léonard Barthelemy, Francis Codron, Jonathan Wille, Vincent Favier, K. R. Clem
• DOI: 10.1029/2025jd043398

Research Groups

Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL)

Short Summary

This study investigates the future impacts of atmospheric rivers (ARs) on the Antarctic surface mass balance (SMB) using 21st-century climate simulations, finding that ARs are projected to increase in frequency and severity, leading to a dominant increase in continental snow accumulation.

Objective

• To estimate the impacts of future atmospheric rivers on the Antarctic surface mass balance using an ensemble of 21st-century simulations from the IPSL-CM6 model.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Antarctic continent
• Temporal Scale: 21st century (simulations)

Methodology and Data

• Models used: IPSL-CM6 model
• Data sources: Ensemble of 21st-century climate simulations

Main Results

• The number of detected ARs continuously increases when using a constant detection threshold, but remains stable with an adaptive threshold that evolves with rising background moisture.
• ARs are projected to penetrate further into Antarctica, following a wave-number 3 pattern.
• The severity of Antarctic ARs, measured by moisture fluxes, is projected to increase in line with the Clausius-Clapeyron relation.
• The corresponding SMB impacts, including increased snowfall, coastal surface melt, and rainfall, all become larger.
• The overall influence on the SMB is dominated by increased snow accumulation related to ARs, which is projected to rise by 17% at the continental scale.
• This AR-related snow accumulation increase is significantly larger than the overall 9% increase in snow accumulation from all events combined, and is closely linked to the rise in total humidity with temperature.

Contributions

• Quantifies the projected impacts of atmospheric rivers on the Antarctic surface mass balance in the 21st century using an ensemble of climate model simulations.
• Highlights the dominant role of AR-related snow accumulation (17% continental increase) as the primary driver of future SMB changes compared to overall snow accumulation (9%).
• Differentiates AR frequency trends based on constant versus adaptive detection thresholds and describes changes in AR penetration patterns.

Funding

Not specified in the provided abstract.

Citation

@article{Barthelemy2025Future,
  author = {Barthelemy, Léonard and Codron, Francis and Wille, Jonathan and Favier, Vincent and Clem, K. R.},
  title = {Future Atmospheric Rivers in Antarctica: Characteristics and Impacts With the IPSL Model},
  journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2025jd043398},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025jd043398}
}