Ocean water vapor and cloud burden trends derived from the topex microwave radiometer

An end-of-mission recalibration effort was recently completed for Topex Microwave Radiometer to generate climate data records of precipitable water vapor and cloud liquid water for 1992–2005. The TMR climate data is analysed for trends. The global trend in precipitable water vapor is found to be 0.9 ± 0.06 mm/decade. Regional precipitable water vapor trends are found to be highly correlated with regional sea surface temperature trends. The cloud liquid water trends are observed to be generally negative outside the tropics and positive in the tropics.