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The relationship between atmospheric water vapor and temperature in simulations of climate change
Author(s) -
Hu Haijun,
Oglesby Robert J.,
Saltzman Barry
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2000gl011680
Subject(s) - environmental science , convection , climatology , general circulation model , atmospheric sciences , atmospheric circulation , moisture , sensitivity (control systems) , water vapor , lapse rate , atmospheric model , climate change , atmospheric models , climate model , meteorology , atmosphere (unit) , geology , physics , oceanography , electronic engineering , engineering
Atmospheric moisture ( Q ) and temperature ( T ) relationships simulated by two general circulation models (GCMs) and that of a recent operational analysis are intercompared. The GCMs represent two important stages of model development, with the earlier one using a simplistic convective adjustment scheme and the more recent one employing a more physically‐realistic convective parameterization. While the models agree in some fundamental qualitative aspects of the Q‐T relationship, they differ quantitatively in the correlations of Q with T , and in the vertical dependencies of moistening to increasing CO 2 . As the sophistication of convective parameterizations has increased, model sensitivity to changes in atmospheric CO 2 has decreased markedly. This study indicates the reduction in sensitivity is primarily due to a reduction in simulated moisture amount along with changes in vertical distributions. While the more recent model shows clear signs of improvements, there is also indication that it may have underestimated the Q‐T correlations, leading to a somewhat lower climate sensitivity with increasing CO 2 .