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Rind, D., 2006: Water-vapor feedback. In Frontiers of Climate Modeling. J.T. Kiehl and V. Ramanathan, Eds. Cambridge University Press, pp. 251-284.
The water-vapor feedback is the response of the atmospheric moisture to changes in climate forced by some other means. The canonical point of view is that when oceans are foced to warm, say by increasing atmospheric CO2, they will evaporate more moisture into the atmosphere. This effect should occur because the atmospheric water-vapor holding capacity increases exponentially with increasing temperature. Increasing water vapor in the atmosphere will lead to further warming of the surface, as water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas. More water vapor thus increases the greenhouse capcity of the atmosphere, radiating more energy back to the surface, where it can lead to further increases in evaporation and even more water vapor, an iterative positive feedback. The present chapter considers the observational evidence and modeling for this important feedback factor in the climate system.
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