The Cryosphere
The Cryosphere
TC
Articles | Volume 20, issue 8
Articles | Volume 20, issue 8
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-4421-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-4421-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 20, issue 8
Research article
 | 
14 Aug 2026
Research article |  | 14 Aug 2026

Anatomy and impact of a high Arctic atmospheric river driving extreme winter rain and snowfall

Hannah Bailey, Jason E. Box, Ben G. Kopec, Valtteri Hyöky, Hannu Marttila, Jeffrey M. Welker, Jack Kohler, Dmitry V. Divine, and Alun Hubbard

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-4421-2026-supplement

Data sets

Ny-Ålesund Atmospheric Water Vapour Isotope Data (1 Jan–31 May 2022) Hannah Bailey et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18888749

High resolution radiosonde measurements from station Ny-Ålesund (2022-03) M. Maturilli https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.944406

An ERA5-based Dataset for Atmospheric River Analysis (EDARA): Multi-decade numerical and graphical catalogues R. Mo https://doi.org/10.20383/103.0935

S100 Raster Norwegian Polar Institute https://doi.org/10.21334/NPOLAR.1990.44CA8C2A

ETOPO 2022 15 Arc-Second Global Relief Model NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information https://doi.org/10.25921/fd45-gt74

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Short summary
Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are narrow corridors of intense heat and moisture that can deliver extreme weather to the Arctic. We investigate a record March 2022 event in Svalbard using measurements of air and precipitation to track its origin and evolution. While the AR brought unusual winter rain and snow melt, it also delivered substantial snowfall that partially offset glacier mass loss. These findings show that the impacts of ARs on Arctic glaciers are more complex than typically reported.
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