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Response of stratospheric water vapour to warming constrained by satellite observations

Nowack, Peer and Ceppi, Paulo and Davis, Sean M. and Chiodo, Gabriel and Ball, William and Diallo, Mohamadou and Hassler, Birgit and Jia, Yue and Keeble, James and Joshi, Manoj (2023) Response of stratospheric water vapour to warming constrained by satellite observations. Nature Geoscience. Nature Publishing Group. doi: 10.1038/s41561-023-01183-6. ISSN 1752-0894.

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Official URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01183-6

Abstract

Future increases in stratospheric water vapour risk amplifying climate change and slowing down the recovery of the ozone layer. However, state-of-the-art climate models strongly disagree on the magnitude of these increases under global warming. Uncertainty primarily arises from the complex processes leading to dehydration of air during its tropical ascent into the stratosphere. Here we derive an observational constraint on this longstanding uncertainty. We use a statistical-learning approach to infer historical co-variations between the atmospheric temperature structure and tropical lower stratospheric water vapour concentrations. For climate models, we demonstrate that these historically constrained relationships are highly predictive of the water vapour response to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. We obtain an observationally constrained range for stratospheric water vapour changes per degree of global warming of 0.31 ± 0.39 ppmv K−1. Across 61 climate models, we find that a large fraction of future model projections are inconsistent with observational evidence. In particular, frequently projected strong increases (>1 ppmv K−1) are highly unlikely. Our constraint represents a 50% decrease in the 95th percentile of the climate model uncertainty distribution, which has implications for surface warming, ozone recovery and the tropospheric circulation response under climate change.

Item URL in elib:https://elib.dlr.de/195800/
Document Type:Article
Title:Response of stratospheric water vapour to warming constrained by satellite observations
Authors:
AuthorsInstitution or Email of AuthorsAuthor's ORCID iDORCID Put Code
Nowack, PeerGrantham Institute, Imperial College, London, UKUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Ceppi, PauloGrantham Institute, Imperial College London, London, UKUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Davis, Sean M.NOAA, Boulder, CO, USAUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Chiodo, GabrielSwiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerlandhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-8079-6314UNSPECIFIED
Ball, WilliamTU Delft, Delft, NLhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-1005-3670UNSPECIFIED
Diallo, MohamadouFZ Jülich, Jülich, GermanyUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Hassler, BirgitDLR, IPAhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-2724-709XUNSPECIFIED
Jia, YueNOAA, Boulder, CO, USAUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Keeble, JamesCambridge University, UKUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Joshi, ManojUniversity of East Anglia, Norwich, UKUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Date:26 June 2023
Journal or Publication Title:Nature Geoscience
Refereed publication:Yes
Open Access:Yes
Gold Open Access:No
In SCOPUS:Yes
In ISI Web of Science:Yes
DOI:10.1038/s41561-023-01183-6
Publisher:Nature Publishing Group
ISSN:1752-0894
Status:Published
Keywords:stratosphere; water vapour; emergent constraint
HGF - Research field:Aeronautics, Space and Transport
HGF - Program:Space
HGF - Program Themes:Earth Observation
DLR - Research area:Raumfahrt
DLR - Program:R EO - Earth Observation
DLR - Research theme (Project):R - Atmospheric and climate research
Location: Oberpfaffenhofen
Institutes and Institutions:Institute of Atmospheric Physics > Earth System Model Evaluation and Analysis
Deposited By: Hassler, Dr. Birgit
Deposited On:06 Jul 2023 09:45
Last Modified:11 Jul 2023 08:59

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