The observed sensitivity of the global hydrological cycle to changes in surface temperature

Climate models project large changes in global surface temperature in coming decades that are expected to be accompanied by significant changes in the global hydrological cycle. Validation of model simulations is essential to support their use in decision making, but observing the elements of the hy...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnvironmental research letters Vol. 5; no. 3; p. 035201
Main Authors Arkin, Phillip A, Smith, Thomas M, Sapiano, Mathew R P, Janowiak, John
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Bristol IOP Publishing 01.07.2010
Subjects
Climate models
Climate system
Datasets
Decision making
Global climate
Global temperatures
Hydrologic cycle
Hydrologic data
Hydrology
Precipitation
Sensitivity
Surface temperature
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Summary:Climate models project large changes in global surface temperature in coming decades that are expected to be accompanied by significant changes in the global hydrological cycle. Validation of model simulations is essential to support their use in decision making, but observing the elements of the hydrological cycle is challenging, and model-independent global data sets exist only for precipitation. We compute the sensitivity of the global hydrological cycle to changes in surface temperature using available global precipitation data sets and compare the results against the sensitivities derived from model simulations of 20th century climate. The implications of the results for the global climate observing system are discussed.
ISSN:1748-9326
1748-9326
DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/5/3/035201