Upstream of hydroclimate extremes : maxima of moisture transport

The prevailing westerly winds provide Europe with an average flow of moisture from the North Atlantic. We document the climatological transport of water vapour across Europe's western border, from the south of the Iberic Peninsula to Northern Scandinavia. Four state-of-the-art reanalyses (NCEP CFSR, JRA 55, MERRA 2 and ERA 5) are confronted to satellite observations (QUIKSCAT and ASCAT) and to radiosoundings (IGRA) from six coastal sites.  Over the datasets' common time range (2000-2011), the agreement is generally good in terms of yearly and monthly fluxes. The satellite products have generally lower values than the rest of the ensemble. Some disparities appear on the vertical. A longer time range (1980-2020) excludes satellite data but allows to detect local increases in moisture transport in the later years.

Beyond the climatological picture, day to day moisture fluxes present significant fluctuations, both in the dry and wet directions. The variability is consistent between reanalyses and radiosondes but slightly weaker in the satellite data. The fluxes on pressure levels are strongly correlated to their vertically integrated counterpart. We take advantage of the vertical coherence to stratify humidity and wind profiles according to quantiles of integrated moisture transport. The respective role of humidity and wind changes becomes apparent. Wind speed and direction determines the moisture transport more than the humidity field on a short term basis. On the scale of decades, there was no discernable change of circulation. It was moistening that drove the increase in water vapour transport. The effect was disproportionate for higher quantiles as a consequence of the non-linear Clausius-Clapeyron equation.