Malinin V. N., Gordeeva S. M., Naumov L. M., Ershova A. A., Averkiev A. S.
The linear trends in the components of ocean-atmosphere moisture exchange (evaporation, precipitation and their difference — net evaporation), air temperature, and sea surface temperature are estimated based on the data of the archive Reanalysis-2 and the data from the REMSS satellite archive on integral atmospheric total precipitable water for the period of 1988—2016. An intensification of growth of moister exchange components has been observed since 2012. The results showed that the amount of precipitation over the global ocean is growing faster than evaporation by 1.1 mm/year, which is 35 % of the actual global sea level trend (3.1 mm/year). The analysis of dimensionless trends showed that the trend in total atmospheric precipitable water is almost twice as high as the trend in air temperature over the global ocean. This means that the longterm (trend) changes of precipitable water depend primarily on the vertical air-ocean moisture exchange and not on the global warming. Since 2012 the growth of amount of precipitable water is 1 year ahead of air temperature. Thus the characteristics of atmospheric total precipitable water is not only a key consequence of the global warming process, but is also its forming factor.
