Science Source
Identification of human-induced changes in atmospheric moisture content
- States that data from the satellite-based Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) show that the total atmospheric moisture content over oceans has increased by 0.41 kg/m2 per decade since 1988
- States that results from current climate models indicate that water vapor increases of this magnitude cannot be explained by climate noise alone
- Presents a formal detection and attribution analysis using the pooled results from 22 different climate models
- Finds the simulated “fingerprint” pattern of anthropogenically caused changes in water vapor is identifiable with high statistical confidence in the SSM/I data
- Finds that experiments in which forcing factors are varied individually suggest that this fingerprint “match” is primarily due to human-caused increases in greenhouse gases and not to solar forcing or recovery from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo
- Findings provide preliminary evidence of an emerging anthropogenic signal in the moisture content of earth's atmosphere
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