What is causing the Increase in Atmospheric Water Vapor?
Researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and and a group of international researchers have found that model quality does not affect the ability to identify human effects on atmospheric water vapor. A water vapor image from Tuesday, courtesy of NASA. The atmosphere’s water vapor content has increased by about 0.4 kilograms per square meter per decade since 1988, and natural variability alone can’t explain this moisture change, according to lead author Benjamin Santer of the LLNL . More water vapor, which is itself a greenhouse gas, amplifies the warming effect of increased atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, according to the LLNL press release. The group of scientists ran a “fingerprint” analysis of 22 different climate models and tested each model individually. Regardless of model quality, each model came to the same conclusion…..Humans are warming the planet, and this warming is increasing the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. In every case, a wate
