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Title: Global Hydrological Cycle Response to Rapid and Slow Global Warming

Journal Article · · Journal of Climate
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2]
  1. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
  2. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
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This study analyzes the response of global water vapor to global warming in a series of fully coupled climate model simulations. The authors find that a roughly 7% K-1 rate of increase of water vapor with global surface temperature is robust only for rapid anthropogenic-like climate change. For slower warming that occurred naturally in the past, the Southern Ocean has time to equilibrate, producing a different pattern of surface warming, so that water vapor increases at only 4.2% K-1. This lower rate of increase of water vapor with warming is not due to relative humidity changes or differences in mean lower-tropospheric temperature. A temperature of over 80°C would be required in the Clausius–Clapeyron relationship to match the 4.2% K-1 rate of increase. Instead, the low rate of increase is due to spatially heterogeneous warming. During slower global warming, there is enhanced warming at southern high latitudes, and hence less warming in the tropics per kelvin of global surface temperature increase. This leads to a smaller global water vapor increase, because most of the atmospheric water vapor is in the tropics. A formula is proposed that applies to general warming scenarios. This study also examines the response of global-mean precipitation and the meridional profile of precipitation minus evaporation and compares the latter to thermodynamic scalings. It is found that global-mean precipitation changes are remarkably robust between rapid and slow warming. Thermodynamic scalings for the rapid- and slow-warming zonal-mean precipitation are similar, but the precipitation changes are significantly different, suggesting that circulation changes are important in driving these differences.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF); Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI ID:
1565236
Journal Information:
Journal of Climate, Vol. 26, Issue 22; ISSN 0894-8755
Publisher:
American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 21 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (13)

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Transient Simulation of Last Deglaciation with a New Mechanism for Bolling-Allerod Warming journal July 2009
Sensitivity of a global climate model to an increase of CO 2 concentration in the atmosphere journal January 1980
How closely do changes in surface and column water vapor follow Clausius–Clapeyron scaling in climate change simulations? journal April 2010
Energetic Constraints on Precipitation Under Climate Change journal November 2011
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Radiative Constraints on the Hydrological Cycle in an Idealized Radiative–Convective Equilibrium Model journal January 2009
The Low-Resolution CCSM3 journal June 2006

Cited By (3)

The East Asian Monsoon since the Last Glacial Maximum: Evidence from geological records in northern China journal September 2018
Changes in Water Level Regimes in China’s Two Largest Freshwater Lakes: Characterization and Implication journal May 2019
The transient response of atmospheric and oceanic heat transports to anthropogenic warming journal January 2019

Figures / Tables (6)

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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Anthropogenic effects
Humidity
Paleoclimate
Water vapor