Data · dataset · 2026
Water vapour adjustments and responses differ between climate drivers
Listed in National Center for Atmospheric Research
Water vapour in the atmosphere is the source of a major climate feedback mechanism and potential increases in the availability of water vapour could have important consequences for mean and extreme precipitation.
Description
Future precipitation changes further depend on how the hydrological cycle responds to different drivers of climate change, such as greenhouse gases and aerosols. Currently, neither the total anthropogenic influence on the hydrological cycle nor that from individual drivers is constrained sufficiently to make solid projections.
We investigate how integrated water vapour (IWV) responds to different drivers of climate change. Results from 11 global climate models have been used, based on simulations where CO2, methane, solar irradiance, black carbon (BC), and sulfate have been perturbed separately. While the global-mean IWV is usually assumed to increase by â¼7â% per kelvin of surface temperature change, we find that the feedback response of IWV differs somewhat between drivers.
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Fast responses, which include the initial radiative effect and rapid adjustments to an external forcing, amplify these differences. The resulting net changes in IWV range from 6.4±0.9â%âKâ1 for sulfate to 9.8±2â%âKâ1 for BC. We further calculate the relationship between global changes in IWV and precipitation, which can be characterized by quantifying changes in atmospheric water vapour lifetime.
Global climate models simulate a substantial increase in the lifetime, from 8.2±0.5 to 9.9±0.7âd between 1986â2005 and 2081â2100 under a high-emission scenario, and we discuss to what extent the water vapour lifetime provides additional information compared to analysis of IWV and precipitation separately. We conclude that water vapour lifetime changes are an important indicator of changes in precipitation patterns and that BC is particularly efficient in prolonging the mean time, and therefore likely the distance, between evaporation and precipitation.
Links
Get the data
- Publisher page n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7vd72mk ↗
documentation · download · from data ucar edu
Where it is published
- data.ucar.edu /dataset/water-vapour-adjustments-and-responses-differ-between-… ↗
National Center for Atmospheric Research dataset page
landing page · from data ucar edu
Catalogue records · 1
- CKAN API data.ucar.edu/api/3/action/package_show?id=30cec932-c53f-4856-97d4-5881f5456… ↗
metadata API · from data ucar edu
Topics
- From keywords
- Earth & Environmental Science · Ocean & Atmospheric Science
- Inferred from text
- Climate change science 69%
Provenance · 1 source records, 8 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Center for Atmospheric Research | 30cec932-c53f-4856-97d4-5881f5456831 | 12 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| concepts[field].anzsrc:group:3702 | enrichment · data ucar edu | taxonomy-embedding@1.1.0 | title+keywords+description (69%) |
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:ocean-atmospheric | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| created_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /notes |
| publication_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /title |
| updated_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 |