10Atmospheric humidity plays an important role in climate analyses. Here we describe the production and key 11 characteristics of a new quasi-global marine humidity product intended for climate monitoring,
12HadISDH.marine. It is an in-situ based multi-variable marine humidity product, gridded monthly at a 5° by 5° 13 spatial resolution from January 1973 to December 2018 with annual updates planned. Currently, only reanalyses 14 provide up to date estimates of marine surface humidity but there are concerns over their long-term stability. As 15 a result, this new product makes a valuable addition to the climate record and will help address some of the 16 uncertainties around recent changes (e.g. contrasting land and sea trends, relative humidity drying). Efforts have 17 been made to quality control the data, ensure spatial and temporal homogeneity as far as possible, adjust for 18 known biases in non-aspirated instruments and ship heights, and also estimate uncertainty in the data.
19Uncertainty estimates for whole-number reporting and for other measurement errors have not been quantified 20 before for marine humidity. This is a companion product to HadISDH.land, which, when combined will provide 21 methodologically consistent land and marine estimates of surface humidity.
23The spatial coverage of HadISDH.marine is good over the Northern Hemisphere outside of the high latitudes but 24 poor over the Southern Hemisphere, especially south of 20° S. The trends and variability shown are in line with 25 overall signals of increasing moisture and warmth over oceans from theoretical expectations and other products.
26Uncertainty in the global average is larger over periods where digital ship metadata are fewer or unavailable but 27 not large enough to cast doubt over trends in specific humidity or air temperature. Hence, we conclude that
28HadISDH.marine is a useful contribution to our understanding of climate change. However, we note that our 29 https://doi.ability to monitor surface humidity with any degree of confidence depends on the continued availability of ship 30 data and provision of digitised metadata.
32HadISDH.marine data, derived diagnostics and plots are available at 33 www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisdh/indexMARINE.html (Willett et al., 2019). 34 35 1 Introduction 36 37 Water vapour plays a key role as a greenhouse gas, in the dynamical development of weather systems, and 38 impacts society through precipitation and heat stress. Over land, all these aspects are important and recent 39 changes have been assessed by Willett et al. (2014). Over the oceans, a major source of moisture over land, a 40 similar analysis is essential to enhance our understanding of the observed changes generally and as a basis for 41 worldwide evaluation of climate models. In recognition of its importance, the surface atmospheric humidity has 42 been recognised as one of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Essential Climate Variables (ECVs). 43 44 Observational sources of humidity over the ocean are limited. The NOCSv2.0 (B...