2007/06/01 by F. J. Wentz, Lucrezia Ricciardulli, Kyle Hilburn +1 · 6 citations
Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Climate variability and models #Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations #Tropical and Extratropical Cyclones Research
paper · doi:10.1126/science.1140746
openalex publication_date 2007/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Climate models and satellite observations both indicate that the total amount of water in the atmosphere will increase at a rate of 7% per kelvin of surface warming. However, the climate models predict that global precipitation will increase at a much slower rate of 1 to 3% per kelvin. A recent analysis of satellite observations does not support this prediction of a muted response of precipitation to global warming. Rather, the observations suggest that precipitation and total atmospheric water have increased at about the same rate over the past two decades.