Within the framework of the AMIP -- Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (Gates, 1992), Diagnostic Subproject on Polar Phenomena and Sea Ice, an intercomparison and a comparison against observation have been undertaken of precipitation and evaporation simulated by 23 AGCMs over regions of relevance to high-latitude freshwater cycle. These are: the Arctic Ocean (in this study -- bounded by 70°N); its land watershed basins (including land watersheds of individual Arctic seas, as in Ivanov, 1976); and the entire ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. The regions under consideration correspond to three major forms of freshwater input into the ocean: precipitation, river run-off and iceberg discharge from glaciers. The AGCMs have been run for the 10-year period 1979-88, with the same SST and sea-ice extent prescribed from observation. Observationally-derived estimates of precipitation are based on global (Legates and Willmott, 1990) and regional (Bryazgin, 1976; Bryazgin and Shver, 1976) climatologies (hereinafter -- LW, B. and BS, correspondingly). Additional data on precipitation are monthly fields of Jaeger (1983) and monthly areal averages of Vowinckel and Orvig (1970). Estimates of evaporation for the regions considered are obtained from Zubenok (1976) and WWB (1974). WWB (1974) and IPCC (1990) provide estimates of iceberg discharge from the ice sheets (both estimates are based on the assumption of the ice sheets' mass equilibrium).