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Cited by 14Climate variability and modelsMeteorological Phenomena and SimulationsClimate Change and Environmental Impact

Hydrologic cycle weakening in hothouse climates

Open access
Liu, Jiachen, Yang, Jun, Ding, Feng, Chen, Gang, Hu, Yongyun·2024·Science Advances
DOI 10.1126/sciadv.ado2515PMC PMC11042734
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Abstract

The hydrologic cycle has wide impacts on the ocean salinity and circulation, carbon and nitrogen cycles, and the ecosystem. Under anthropogenic global warming, previous studies showed that the intensification of the hydrologic cycle is a robust feature. Whether this trend persists in hothouse climates, however, is unknown. Here, we show in climate models that mean precipitation first increases with rising surface temperature, but the precipitation trend reverses when the surface is hotter than ~320 to 330 kelvin. This nonmonotonic phenomenon is robust to the cause of warming, convection scheme, ocean dynamics, atmospheric mass, planetary rotation, gravity, and stellar spectrum. The weakening occurs because of the existence of an upper limitation of outgoing longwave emission and the continuously increasing shortwave absorption by H 2 O and is consistent with atmospheric dynamics featuring the strong increase of atmospheric stratification and marked reduction of convective mass flux. These results have wide implications for the climate evolutions of Earth, Venus, and potentially habitable exoplanets.

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  • Stratospheric heating by stratospheric aerosol injection could cause perturbations to global circulation patterns that, like stratospheric ozone depletion, would drive changes to the hydrological cycle, potentially disrupting ecosystem processes and the cycling of carbon and nitrogen.

    “Stratospheric heating by SAI could cause perturbations to global circulation patterns that, like stratospheric ozone depletion, would drive changes to the hydrological cycle, potentially disrupting ecosystem processes and the cycling of carbon and nitrogen [45].”

    From Environmental consequences of interacting effects of changes in stratospheric ozone, ultraviolet radiation, and climate: UNEP Environmental Effects Assessment Panel, Update 2024 (2025) · cites this paper as [45]

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Authors
Liu, J., Yang, J., Ding, F., Chen, G., & Hu, Y.
Affiliations
  • Peking University (CN)
  • University of California, Los Angeles (US)
Corresponding author
Yang, Jun
ORCID
Venue
Science Advances
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Published
2024-04-26
Volume
10
Issue
17
Pages
eado2515-eado2515
ISSN
2375-2548 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1126/sciadv.ado2515
PMC
PMC11042734
OpenAlex
W4395069323
Cited by
14
References
1
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 2
FWCI
2.47
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by-nc
Locations
  • Science Advances (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Funders
National Natural Science Foundation of China (41888101,, 42161144011, 42488201, 42275134, 42075046)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate Change and Environmental Impact
Keywords
hothouse climate, outgoing longwave radiation, atmospheric stratification, convective mass flux, global warming, Venus climate, habitable exoplanets, climate evolution

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