Atmospheric River detection under changing seasonality and mean‐state climate: ARTMIP tier 2 paleoclimate experiments

Intercomparison Project (ARTMIP). We compare a simulation with an early Holocene orbital configuration and another with CO 2 levels of the Last Glacial Maximum to a preindustrial control simulation to test how the ARDTs respond to changes in seasonality and mean climate state, respectively. We find good agreement among the algorithms in the AR response to the changing orbital configuration, with a poleward shift in AR frequency that tracks seasonal poleward shifts in atmospheric water vapor and zonal winds.

In the low CO 2 simulation, the algorithms generally agree on the sign of AR changes, but there is substantial spread in their magnitude, indicating that mean‐state changes lead to larger uncertainty. This disagreement likely arises primarily from differences between algorithms in their thresholds for water vapor and its transport used for identifying ARs. These findings warrant caution in ARDT selection for paleoclimate and climate change studies in which there is a change to the mean climate state, as ARDT selection contributes substantial uncertainty in such cases.