Lavers, David A.; Ralph, F. Martin; Waliser, Duane E.; Gershunov, Alexander; Dettinger, Michael D. (2018). Data from: Climate change intensification of horizontal water vapor transport in CMIP5. UC San Diego Library Digital Collections. https://doi.org/10.6075/J000009G

Abstract: Global warming of the Earth's atmosphere is hypothesized to lead to an intensification of the global water cycle. To determine associated hydrological changes, most previous research has used precipitation. This study, however, investigates projected changes to global atmospheric water vapor transport (integrated vapor transport (IVT)), the key link between water source and sink regions. Using 22 global circulation models from the Climate Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5, we evaluate, globally, the mean, standard deviation, and the 95th percentiles of IVT from the historical simulations (1979–2005) and two emissions scenarios (2073–2099). Considering the more extreme emissions, multimodel mean IVT increases by 30–40% in the North Pacific and North Atlantic storm tracks and in the equatorial Pacific Ocean trade winds. An acceleration of the high-latitude IVT is also shown. Analysis of low-altitude moisture and winds suggests that these changes are mainly due to higher atmospheric water vapor content.

The global circulation models available for download here were accessioned from CMIP5 (https://cmip.llnl.gov/cmip5/) between January 2014 and January 2015. Users are encouraged to download models directly from CMIP5 for running analyses not directly related to Lavers et al. 2015.

For each of these models, there are historical, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 simulations of the vertically-integrated horizontal water vapor transport.

The dates in the NetCDF files use calendars from the original model output; please consult the CMIP5 homepage for more details about the calendars.

• 2014-2015

• 2018

• Lavers, David A.

• Dettinger, Michael D.
• Gershunov, Alexander
• Ralph, F. Martin
• Waliser, Duane E.

We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups (listed in the README file available on this page) for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP the U.S. Department of Energy's Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals.

California Department of Water Resources

• Atmospheric river
• Climate changes
• CMIP5 climate projections
• Global water cycle
• Water vapor transport

• data
• text

Doi: https://doi.org/10.6075/J000009G

Primary associated publication

• Lavers, D. A., F. M. Ralph, D. E. Waliser, A. Gershunov, and M. D. Dettinger. (2015). Climate change intensification of horizontal water vapor transport in CMIP5, Geophys. Res. Lett., 42, 5617–5625. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL064672

Source data

• CMIP5 - Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5: https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip5/

Other resource

• World Climate Research Programme - CMIP5: https://www.wcrp-climate.org/wgcm-cmip/wgcm-cmip5

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2023-10-18