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. Water vapour in the atmosphere is the source of a major climate feedbackmechanism and potential increases in the availability of water vapour couldhave important consequences for mean and extreme precipitation. Futureprecipitation changes further depend on how the hydrological cycle respondsto different drivers of climate change, such as greenhouse gases andaerosols. Currently, neither the total anthropogenic influence on thehydrological cycle nor that from individual drivers is constrainedsufficiently to make solid projections. We investigate how integrated watervapour (IWV) responds to different drivers of climate change. Results from11 global climate models have been used, based on simulations where CO2 , methane, solar irradiance, black carbon (BC), and sulfate havebeen perturbed separately. While the global-mean IWV is usually assumed toincrease by ∼7  % per kelvin of surface temperature change, we find that the feedback response of IWV differs somewhat between drivers. 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±0.9  % K −1 for sulfate to 9.8±2  % K −1 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±0.7  d between 1986–2005 and 2081–2100 under a high-emissionscenario, and we discuss to what extent the water vapour lifetime providesadditional information compared to analysis of IWV and precipitationseparately. We conclude that water vapour lifetime changes are an importantindicator of changes in precipitation patterns and that BC is particularlyefficient in prolonging the mean time, and therefore likely the distance,between evaporation and precipitation.

Water vapour adjustments and responses differ between climate drivers