Robust responses and links between the tropical energy
and water cycles are investigated using multiple datasets and
climate models over the period 1979 ­ 2006. Atmospheric
moisture and net radiative cooling provide powerful
constraints upon future changes in precipitation. While
moisture amount is robustly linked with surface
temperature, the response of atmospheric net radiative
cooling, derived from satellitedata, is less coherent.
Precipitation trends and relationships with surface
temperature are highly sensitive to the data product and the
time-period considered. Data from the Special Sensor
Microwave Imager (SSM/I) produces the strongest trends
in precipitation and response to warming of all the datasets
considered. The tendency for moist regions to become
wetter while dry regions become drier in response to
warming is captured by both observations and models.

Full Article: http://www.nerc-essc.ac.uk/~rpa/publications.html

Last Updated: 2009-08-06