Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
ACP
Articles | Volume 16, issue 6
Articles | Volume 16, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-4159-2016
© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-4159-2016
© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Articles | Volume 16, issue 6
Research article
 | 
30 Mar 2016
Research article |  | 30 Mar 2016

Upper tropospheric humidity changes under constant relative humidity

Klaus Gierens and Kostas Eleftheratos

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Short summary
Upper tropospheric humidity (UTH) is a weighted mean of the relative humidity (RH) in the upper troposphere. It can change due to climate change even when the relative humidity would stay unchanged because the weighting functions will alter. We show that changes of UTH expected during 30 years of tropospheric warming are typically less than 1 % in magnitude and mostly negative. Larger positive changes of UTH (as found in an analysis of 30 years of satellite data) point thus to an increase of RH.
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