Blue Planet News

English researchers released Wednesday that human activities such as burning oil, coal and producing CO2 in excessive quantities through by whatever means not only heat the Earth’s surface, but they also increase humidity in the atmosphere whose air we all breathe.

In less than 30 years the humidity at the surface of the planet rose about 2.2%.

They sustain that this sudden rise in the level of humidity will be harmful to people, as more and more will suffer from heat stress. It will also intensify the power of the oceanic winds, the power of tropical storms.

Lead researcher Nathan Gillett of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, told AFP that Earth’s humidity levels will increase by 10 percent by 2100.

From 1976 to 2004, when the world’s average surface temperature rose 0.49 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit), global levels of atmospheric water vapour rose 2.2 percent.

Scientists have long predicted that a warmer atmosphere will allow more water to evaporate, thus making the planet more humid.

But it was unclear whether these changes were the result of a natural or a human impact on the climate. However, the study is based on a new set of observations of humidity levels obtained through a powerful computer model of Earth’s climate system in the late 20th century.

The study combined a fresh data set of surface humidity with climate models, “and actually attribute[s] those trends to human influence,” said Gillett.

Steam, a greenhouse gas traps solar heat in the atmosphere thus stoking the warming effect and increasing the humidity. Moisture in the air increases by about 6 percent with every degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), he said.