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Stratospheric Water Vapor Feedback Disclosed by a Locking Experiment
Author(s) -
Huang Yi,
Wang Yuwei,
Huang Han
Publication year - 2020
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 - 10.1029/2020gl087987
Subject(s) - environmental science , global warming , water vapor , troposphere , atmospheric sciences , climatology , climate change , humidity , cloud feedback , climate model , meteorology , climate sensitivity , geology , geography , oceanography
Most global climate models project a considerable stratospheric moistening during global warming. It is important to quantify how significantly the increase of stratospheric humidity affects the radiation budget and contributes to the surface warming. Here, we conduct a mechanism denial experiment to investigate the warming effect of the stratospheric water vapor (SWV) using a global climate model. By locking the SWV in a quadrupling CO 2 experiment, we find that the surface warming effect of SWV is not as significant as previously thought, increasing the global mean surface warming by about 2%. This is due to compensating changes in other feedback, especially those of tropospheric temperature and cloud, affected by SWV.