A Lagrangian analysis of the present-day sources of moisture for major ice-core sites

Abstract

A Lagrangian approach was used to identify the moisture sources for 14 ice-core sites located worldwide for the period of 1980-2012. The sites were classified into three domains: Arctic, Central (Andes, Alps, and Kilimanjaro), and Antarctic. The approach was used to compute budgets of evaporation minus precipitation by calculating changes in the specific humidity along 10-day backward trajectories. The results indicate that the oceanic regions around the subtropical high-pressure centres provide most of moisture, and their contribution varies throughout the year following the annual cycles of the centres. For the Arctic Domain, the sources lie in the subtropical North Atlantic and Pacific. The subtropical South Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans provide moisture for the Antarctic Domain. The sources for South America are the Atlantic and South Pacific, for Europe the sources are in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic, and for Asia the sources are the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.