Despite its low concentration, stratospheric water vapour has been thought to play an important role in shaping the climate sensitivity. This is especially concerning because most global climate models project a strong stratospheric moistening during global warming.

In accordance with this view, there are notions that the 2022 Hunga volcano eruption, which injected a historical amount of water into the stratosphere, may have accounted for the historical warming observed in the subsequent year.

Here, I debate that the global warming effect of stratospheric water vapour may have been overestimated because of the neglected atmospheric adjustment processes. A series of evidence from locking experiment, forcing experiment and multi-model assessments suggest that its warming effect can be muted by compensating tropospheric adjustments.

Yi Huang is a Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at McGill University, Canada. His research is focused on atmospheric radiation. He obtained his Ph.D. at Princeton University and was a Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University before joining the faculty at McGill University. He is currently a Sciences & Applications co-Lead of a Canadian satellite mission, High-altitude Aerosols, Water vapour and Clouds (HAWC).

Lieu
LOCEAN, Jussieu
salle de réunion
Aile 45-55, 4^e étage

Visio
https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/98483425689?pwd=a1SBFuuehkSMvqba4ip8gnUhslFvzN.1