Well, it’s not exactly going to be a sauna, but you’ll get the picture just by thinking at it: global warming will cause more humidity in the air, besides more devastating hurricanes and floods.

A warmer atmosphere means that more water from Earth’s oceans, lakes and rivers will evaporate, fueling heavier rains and driving hurricanes’ strength to its full destructive potential. Moreover, global warming will also cause the desertification process to intensify in some regions on the globe, thus making even more difficult the fight against it in areas that are already threatened by lifeless sands and scorching heat.

However, it’s not the heat that should concern you, but the humidity that will increase once the heat amplifies. This will cause humidity-related discomfort in humans, especially at the tropics, where scientists and meteorologists have long predicted a surge in the overall quantity of rainfall.

"In heat waves, if the humidity is higher, then that results in larger heat stress on humans," said Nathan Gillett, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and co-author of a comprehensive study published in the latest issue of Nature, that combines data from other previous meteorological studies.

As if this wouldn’t be enough, the research has clearly demonstrated that global warming will also get a boost from its own negative effects: higher levels of water vapor in the atmosphere will trap more heat (water is one of the best heat and electricity conductors), so eventually water vapors will start acting like greenhouse gases.

"Our best understanding is as we increase greenhouse gases and warm the atmosphere, we increase the atmosphere's capacity to hold moisture. And water vapor is in itself a potent greenhouse gas. Therefore you accelerate the warming," said Benjamin Santer, a climate modeler at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. He was not involved in the research.