Global Changes of the Water Cycle Intensity

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Abstract
In this study, numerical simulations of the twentieth-century climate are evaluated, focusing on the changes in the intensity of the global water cycle. A new model diagnostic of atmospheric water vapor cycling rate is developed and employed that relies on constituent tracers predicted at the model time step. This diagnostic is compared to a simplified traditional calculation of cycling rate, based on monthly averages of precipitation and total water content. The mean sensitivity of both diagnostics to variations in climate forcing is comparable. However, the new diagnostic produces systematically larger values with more variability. Climate simulations were performed using SSTs of the early (1902–21) and late (1979–98) twentieth century along with the appropriate CO2 forcing. In general, the increase of global precipitation with the increases in SST that occurred between the early and late twentieth century is small. However, an increase of atmospheric temperature leads to a systematic increase ... Abstract In this study, numerical simulations of the twentieth-century climate are evaluated, focusing on the changes in the intensity of the global water cycle. A new model diagnostic of atmospheric water vapor cycling rate is developed and employed that relies on constituent tracers predicted at the model time step. This diagnostic is compared to a simplified traditional calculation of cycling rate, based on monthly averages of precipitation and total water content. The mean sensitivity of both diagnostics to variations in climate forcing is comparable. However, the new diagnostic produces systematically larger values with more variability. Climate simulations were performed using SSTs of the early (1902–21) and late (1979–98) twentieth century along with the appropriate CO2 forcing. In general, the increase of global precipitation with the increases in SST that occurred between the early and late twentieth century is small. However, an increase of atmospheric temperature leads to a systematic increase ...