Arctic rainy days are likely to double by 2100. Here’s why

The study used climate modelling to predict changes in precipitation under a high level of greenhouse gas emissions from 2015 to 2100.

While the Arctic is better known for blankets of snow than rain clouds, new research suggests the number of rainy days in the region will roughly double by the end of this century.

The study, published in the American Geophysical Union journal Earth’s Future, used climate modelling to predict changes in precipitation under a high level of greenhouse gas emissions from 2015 to 2100. It found that not only will there be more rainfall in the Arctic by 2100, it will occur earlier in the spring and expand further toward the center of the Arctic Ocean and inland Greenland.

Lead author Tingfeng Dou, a climate scientist at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, said this will mean “the arrival of a new Arctic.”

“In the past, rainfall was primarily limited to the edges of the Greenland ice sheet,” he said in a press release.

The study’s authors, researchers from China and the Netherlands, said more frequent and intense rainfall in the Arctic is expected to increase permafrost melt, releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases, as well as reduce snow cover, and speed up sea-ice loss.

They said it’s also anticipated to result in more rain-on-snow events, where rain falls on existing snowpack and freezes, resulting in an icy crust on top of or within the snow. That can have serious consequences for foraging animals like reindeer, as their food is trapped under the ice, and socio-economic impacts for people who rely on them for food, clothing, transportation and cultural practices.

“Even ordinary rainfall can be regarded as an extreme event in polar regions,” Dou said.

Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center with the University of Colorado Boulder, who was not involved in the recent study, researches rain-on-snow events and their impact on human environment systems like reindeer herding. He said there have been cases where tens of thousands of reindeer and muskox have died because they couldn’t forage following rainfall.