Extreme Precipitation in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland: An Evaluation of Atmospheric Reanalyses

Extreme precipitation events are becoming more common in the Arctic as climate warms, but characterizing these is notoriously challenging. Atmospheric reanalyses have become popular tools for studies data-sparse regions such Arctic. While modern been shown to perform reasonably well at reproducing climate, their ability represent extreme has not investigated depth. In this study, three of most recent reanalyses, ERA-5, MERRA-2, and CFSR, compared surface observations Eastern Canadian Greenland from 1980 2016 assess how they intense observed events. Overall, struggled match accumulations individual (?0.11 ? r 0.47) matched seasonality extremes. The region with strongest between was Southwest Greenland. Performance varies by event, best station may a spatial/temporal offset (up one grid cell or 1 day). products saw similar performance general; however, ERA-5 tends see slightly higher correlations lower biases than MERRA-2 CFSR. Considering limitations situ observations, results suggest that capable representing aggregate (e.g., seasonal annual time scales), struggle consistently timing location specific