How/In what way does climate change (increasing global temperatures) affect the Water Cycle?

How/In what way does climate change (increasing global temperatures) affect the Water Cycle?

 

That's a big question, and one to which the entire answer is not yet known. However, GEWEX, The Global Energy & Water Cycle Experiment, is proposing to find the answers.

 

Their home page:

http://www.gewex.org/index.html

 

The goal of GEWEX:

The goal of the GEWEX is to reproduce and predict, by means of suitable models, the variations of the global hydrological regime, its impact on atmospheric and surface dynamics, and variations in regional hydrological processes and water resources and their response to changes in the environment, such as the increase in greenhouse gases. GEWEX will provide an order of magnitude improvement in the ability to model global precipitation and evaporation, as well as accurate assessment of the sensitivity of atmospheric radiation and clouds to climate change.

 

GEWEX is the core program in WCRP concerned with studying the dynamics and thermodynamics of the atmosphere and interactions with the Earth's surface. By virtue of this central role, GEWEX has links with all other WCRP projects, in particular, the Climate Variability and Predictablity (CLIVAR) Project, the Stratospheric Processes and their Role in Climate (SPARC) Project, and the Arctic Climate System Study (ACSYS)/Climate and Cryosphere (CIiC) Project. GEWEX maintains a close link to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) through the International Satellite Land-Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) in coordinating many of the land-surface research activities.

 

Thanks for asking that question - I didn't know GEWEX existed until I googled "climate forcing water cycle". There seems to be enough information there to keep us both busy reading for a long time.

 

Perhaps we can continue this thread and discuss various GEWEX projects.