Amazing stuff!
There is still so much we do not know or understand about climate!
"A study ... has challenged the conventional understanding of the relationship between global warming and ocean evaporation. A research team ... discovered a phenomenon that, despite rising sea surface temperatures, global ocean evaporation has decreased over the past decade.
Ocean evaporation plays a central role in the Earth's hydrological cycle, contributing more than 85% of atmospheric water vapor. Historically, higher sea surface temperatures were expected to increase evaporation rates.
However, observations since the early 2000s have revealed a puzzling slowdown in the growth of global water vapor, prompting scientists to re-examine how ocean evaporation responds to rising temperatures. ..."
From the abstract:
"Ocean evaporation (Eo) is the major source of atmospheric water vapor and precipitation. While it is widely recognized that Eo may increase in a warming climate, recent studies have reported a diminished increase in the global water vapor since ∼2000s, raising doubts about recent changes in Eo.
Using satellite observations, here we show that while global Eo strongly increased from 1988 to 2017, the upward trend reversed in the late 2000s. Since then, two-thirds of the ocean have experienced weakened evaporation, leading to a slight decreasing trend in global-averaged Eo during 2008–2017.
This suggests that even with saturated surface, a warmer climate does not always result in increased evaporation. The reversal in Eo trend is primarily attributed to wind stilling, which is likely tied to the Northern Oscillation Index shifting from positive to negative phases. These findings offer crucial insights into diverse responses of global hydrological cycle to climate change."
Fig. 1 Reversal in ocean evaporation (Eo).
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