Surface Humidity Changes in Different Temporal Scales

Igor Zurbenko, Ming Luo^*

Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, State University of New York at Albany, Rensselaer, USA.

DOI: 10.4236/ajcc.2015.43018                

Abstract

As the key driven factor of hydrological cycles and global energy transfer processes, water vapour in the atmosphere is important for observing and understanding climatic system changes. In this study, we utilized the multi-dimensional Kolmogorov-Zurbenko filter (KZ filter) to assimilate a near-global high-resolution (monthly 1° × 1° grid) humidity climate observation database that provided consistent humidity estimates from 1973 onwards; then we examined the global humidity movements based on different temporal scales that separated out according to the average spectral features of specific humidity data. Humidity climate components were restored with KZ filters to represent the long-term trends and El Nino-like interannual movements. Movies of thermal maps based on these two climate components were used to visualize the water vapour fluctuation patterns over the Earth. Current results suggest that increases in water vapour are found over a large part of the oceans and the land of Eurasia, and the most confirmed increasing pattern is over the south part of North Atlantic and around the India subcontinent; meanwhile, the surface moisture levels over lands of south hemisphere are becoming less.

Keywords

Specific Humidity Climate, El Niño-Like Movement, Long-Term Trend, KZ Filters, Spatial Pattern, Temporal Scales, High Resolution, Visualization

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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