The Atmospheric River (AR) Tracking Method Intercomparison Project (ARTMIP) is a community effort to systematically assess how the uncertainties from AR detectors (ARDTs) impact our scientific understanding of ARs. This study describes the ARTMIP Tier 2 experimental design and initial results using the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) Phases 5 and 6 multi-model ensembles. We show that AR statistics from a given ARDT in CMIP5/6 historical simulations compare remarkably well with the MERRA-2 reanalysis. In CMIP5/6 future simulations, most ARDTs project a global increase in AR frequency, counts, and sizes, especially along the western coastlines of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. We find that the choice of ARDT is the dominant contributor to the uncertainty in projected AR frequency when compared with model choice. These results imply that new projects investigating future changes in ARs should explicitly consider ARDT uncertainty as a core part of the experimental design.

Atmospheric rivers (AR) are large and narrow filaments of poleward horizontal water vapor transport. Because of its direct relationship with horizontal vapor transport, extreme precipitation, and overall AR impacts over land, the AR size is an important characteristic that needs to be better understood. Current AR detection and tracking algorithms have resulted in large uncertainty in estimating AR sizes, with areas varying over several orders of magnitude among different detection methods. We develop and implement five independent size estimation methods to characterize the size of ARs that make landfall over the west coast of North America in the 1980-2017 period and reduce the range of size estimation from ARTMIP. ARs that originate in the Northwest Pacific (WP) (100$^\circ$E-180$^\circ$E) have larger sizes and are more zonally oriented than those from the Northeast Pacific (EP) (180$^\circ$E-240$^\circ$E). ARs become smaller through their life cycle, mainly due to reductions in their width. They also become more meridionally oriented towards the end of their life cycle. Overall, the size estimation methods proposed in this work provide a range of AR areas (between 7x10$^{11}$m$^2$ and 10$^{13}$ m$^2$) that is several orders of magnitude narrower than current methods estimation. This methodology can provide statistical constraints in size and geometry for the AR detection and tracking algorithms; and an objective insight for future studies about AR size changes under different climate scenarios.

We investigate how the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), the dominant mode of tropical subseasonal variability, modulates the life cycle of cool-season North Pacific atmospheric rivers (ARs), low-level jets of intensive poleward moisture transport. When the MJO convection is over the Indian Ocean, more AR events originate over eastern Asia and fewer originate over the subtropical northern Pacific. The opposite changes in the number and location of AR events appear when the MJO convection is over the western Pacific. Dynamical processes involving anomalous MJO wind and seasonal mean moisture are found to be dominant factors that impact AR origins. The anomalous geopotential height pattern of the MJO can modulate AR propagation directions. The robustness of these MJO-AR life cycle connections is further supported by model simulations. The modulation of AR life cycles by the MJO may help to further advance our understanding of subseasonal predictability and future changes of ARs.

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are long and narrow filaments of vapor transport responsible for most poleward moisture transport outside of the tropics. Many AR detection algorithms have been developed to automatically identify ARs in climate data. The diversity of these algorithms has introduced appreciable uncertainties in quantitative measures of AR properties and thereby impedes the construction of a unified and internally consistent climatology of ARs. This paper compares eight global AR detection algorithms from the perspective of AR life cycles following the propagation of ARs from origin to termination in the MERRA2 reanalysis over the period 1980-2017. Uncertainties related to lifecycle characteristics, including number, lifetime, intensity, and frequency distribution are discussed. Notably, the number of AR events per year in the Northern Hemisphere can vary by a factor of 5 with different algorithms. Although all algorithms show that the maximum origin (termination) frequency locates over the northwestern (northeastern) Pacific, significant disagreements occur in regional distribution. Spreads are large in AR lifetime and intensity. The number of landfalling AR events produced by the algorithms can vary from 16 to 78 events per cool season, i.e. by almost a factor of five, although the agreement improves for stronger ARs. By examining the AR’s connection with the Madden-Julian Oscillation and El Niño Southern Oscillation, we find that the overall responses of ARs (such as changes in AR frequency, origin, and landfalling activity) to low-frequency climate variabilities are consistent among algorithms.