GREENLAND PRECIPITATION ESTIMATES FROM THE ATMOSPHERIC MOISTURE BUDGET

Eight radiosonde stations surrounding Greenland at an average separati on of 750 km are used to compute the atmospheric moisture budget. Radi osonde data were available from 1963-89, but were not used for 1963-79 due to insufficient data coverage which likely resulted in a major un derestimation of large moisture inflow events. There is a mean annual inflow of moisture to the atmospheric volume over Greenland through it s southeast and southwest sectors, and outflow to the northeast. Moist ure convergences, equivalent to precipitation minus evaporation, yield an areal average of 32 cm yr-1 of water equivalent; they also show hi gh inter- and intra-annual agreement with earlier modeled precipitatio n estimates found by the authors and serve as further confirmation of their modeling results. The time-averaged eddy component accounts for 90% of the total moisture convergence, reflecting the dominant contrib ution of precipitation from synoptic-scale cyclones.