In an earlier article on water vapor we saw that changing water vapor in the upper troposphere has a disproportionate effect on outgoing longwave radiation (OLR). Here is one example from Spencer & Braswell 1997:
The upper troposphere is very dry, and so the mass of water vapor we need to change OLR by a given W/m² is small by comparison with the mass of water vapor we need to effect the same change in or near the boundary layer (i.e., near to the earth’s surface). See also Visualizing Atmospheric Radiation – Part Four – Water Vapor.
This means that when we are interested in climate feedback and how water vapor concentration changes with surface temperature changes, we are primarily interested in the changes in upper tropospheric water vapor (UTWV).
Upper Tropospheric Water Vapor
A major problem with analyzing UTWV is that most historic measurements are poor for this region. The upper troposphere is very cold and very dry – two issues that cause significant problems for radiosondes.
The atmospheric infrared sounder (AIRS) was launched in 2002 on the Aqua satellite and this instrument is able to measure temperature and water vapor with vertical resolution similar to that obtained from radiosondes. At the same time, because it is on a satellite we get the global coverage that is not available with radiosondes and the ability to measure the very cold, very dry upper tropospheric atmosphere.
Gettelman & Fu (2008) focused on the tropics and analysed the relationship (covariance) between surface temperature and UTWV from AIRS over 2002-2007, and then compared this with the results of the CAM climate model using prescribed (actual) surface temperature from 2001-2004 (note 1):
This study will build upon previous estimates of the water vapor feedback, by focusing on the observed response of upper-tropospheric temperature and humidity (specific and relative humidity) to changes in surface temperatures, particularly ocean temperatures. Similar efforts have been performed before (see below), but this study will use new high vertical resolution satellite measurements and compare them to an atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) at similar resolution.
The water vapor feedback arises largely from the tropics where there is a nearly moist adiabatic profile. If the profile stays moist adiabatic in response to surface temperature changes, and if the relative humidity (RH) is unchanged because of the supply of moisture from the oceans and deep convection to the upper troposphere, then the upper-tropospheric specific humidity will increase.
They describe the objective:
The goal of this work is a better understanding of specific feedback processes using better statistics and vertical resolution than has been possible before. We will compare satellite data over a short (4.5 yr) time record to a climate model at similar space and time resolution and examine the robustness of results with several model simulations. The hypothesis we seek to test is whether water vapor in the model responds to changes in surface temperatures in a manner similar to the observations. This can be viewed as a necessary but not sufficient condition for the model to reproduce the upper-tropospheric water vapor feedback caused by external forcings such as anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
The results are for relative humidity (RH) on the left and absolute humidity on the right:
The graphs show that change in 250 mbar RH with temperature is statistically indistinguishable from zero. For those not familiar with the basics, if RH stays constant with rising temperature it is the same as increasing “specific humidity” – which means an increased mixing ratio of water vapor in the atmosphere. And we see this is the right hand graph.
Figure 1a has considerable scatter, but in general, there is little significant change of 250-hPa relative humidity anomalies with anomalies in the previous month’s surface temperature. The slope is not significantly different than zero in either AIRS observations (1.9 ± 1.9% RH/°C) or CAM (1.4 ± 2.8% RH/°C).
The situation for specific humidity in Fig. 1b indicates less scatter, and is a more fundamental measurement from AIRS (which retrieves specific humidity and temperature separately). In Fig. 1b, it is clear that 250- hPa specific humidity increases with increasing averaged surface temperature in both AIRS observations and CAM simulations. At 250 hPa this slope is 20 ± 8 ppmv/°C for AIRS and 26 ± 11 ppmv/°C for CAM. This is nearly 20% of background specific humidity per degree Celsius at 250 hPa.
The observations and simulations indicate that specific humidity increases with surface temperatures (Fig. 1b). The increase is nearly identical to that required to maintain constant relative humidity (the sloping dashed line in Fig. 1b) for changes in upper-tropospheric temperature. There is some uncertainty in this constant RH line, since it depends on calculations of saturation vapor mixing ratio that are nonlinear, and the temperature used is a layer (200–250 hPa) average.
The graphs below show the change in each variable as surface temperature is altered as a function of pressure (height). The black line is the measurement (AIRS).
So the right side graph shows that, from AIRS data of 4 years, specific humidity increases with surface temperature in the upper troposphere:
Figure 3 – Click to Enlarge
There are a number of model runs using CAM with different constraints. This is a common theme in climate science – researchers attempting to find out what part of the physics (at least as far as the climate model can reproduce it) contributes the most or least to a given effect. The paper has no paywall, so readers are recommended to review the whole paper.
The question of how water vapor responds to increasing surface temperature is a critical one in climate research. The fundamentals are discussed in earlier articles, especially Clouds and Water Vapor – Part Two – and much better explained in the freely available paper Water Vapor Feedback and Global Warming, Held and Soden (2000).
One of the key points is that the response of water vapor in the planetary boundary layer (the bottom layer of the atmosphere) is a lot easier to understand than the response in the “free troposphere”. But how water vapor changes in the free troposphere is the important question. And the water vapor concentration in the free troposphere is dependent on the global circulation, making it dependent on the massive complexity of atmospheric dynamics.
Gettelman and Fu attempt to answer this question for the first half decade’s worth of quality satellite observation and they find a result that is similar to that produced by GCMs.
Many people outside of climate science believe that GCMs have “positive feedback” or “constant relative humidity” programmed in. Delving into a climate model is a technical task, but the details are freely available – e.g., Description of the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM 3.0), W.D. Collins (2004). It’s clear to me that relative humidity is not prescribed in climate models – both from the equations used and from the results that are produced in many papers. And people like the great Isaac Held, a veteran of climate modeling and atmospheric dynamics, also state the same. So, readers who believe otherwise – come forward with evidence.
Still, that’s a different story from acknowledging that climate models attempt to calculate humidity from some kind of physics but believing that these climate models get it wrong. That is of course very possible.
At least from this paper we can see that over this short time period, not subject to strong ENSO fluctuations or significant climate change, the satellite date shows upper tropospheric humidity increasing with surface temperature. And the CAM model produces similar results.
Articles in this Series
Part One – introducing some ideas from Ramanathan from ERBE 1985 – 1989 results
Part One – Responses – answering some questions about Part One
Part Two – some introductory ideas about water vapor including measurements
Part Three – effects of water vapor at different heights (non-linearity issues), problems of the 3d motion of air in the water vapor problem and some calculations over a few decades
Part Four – discussion and results of a paper by Dessler et al using the latest AIRS and CERES data to calculate current atmospheric and water vapor feedback vs height and surface temperature
Part Five – Back of the envelope calcs from Pierrehumbert – focusing on a 1995 paper by Pierrehumbert to show some basics about circulation within the tropics and how the drier subsiding regions of the circulation contribute to cooling the tropics
Part Six – Nonlinearity and Dry Atmospheres – demonstrating that different distributions of water vapor yet with the same mean can result in different radiation to space, and how this is important for drier regions like the sub-tropics
Observed and Simulated Upper-Tropospheric Water Vapor Feedback, Gettelman & Fu, Journal of Climate (2008) – free paper
How Dry is the Tropical Free Troposphere? Implications for Global Warming Theory, Spencer & Braswell, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (1997) – free paper
Note 1 – The authors note: “..Model SSTs may be slightly different from the data, but represent a partially overlapping period..”
I asked Andrew Gettelman why the model was run for a different time period than the observations and he said that the data (in the form needed for running CAM) was not available at that time.