Fm. Robasky et Dh. Bromwich, GREENLAND PRECIPITATION ESTIMATES FROM THE ATMOSPHERIC MOISTURE BUDGET, Geophysical research letters, 21(23), 1994, pp. 2495-2498
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.