A 10% drop in water vapour, 10 miles up has had an effect on global warming over the last 10 years, scientists say. Photograph: Getty

Scientists have underestimated the role that water vapour plays in determining global temperature changes, according to a new study that could fuel further attacks on the science of climate change.

The research, led by one of the world’s top climate scientists, suggests that almost one-third of the global warming recorded during the 1990s was due to an increase in water vapour in the high atmosphere, not human emissions of greenhouse gases. A subsequent decline in water vapour after 2000 could explain a recent slowdown in global temperature rise, the scientists add.

You report (Cold snap does not undermine climate case – scientist, 12 January) that Professor Mojib Latif of Kiel University, a leading member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has attacked as “misleading” my article in the Mail on Sunday (10 January), stating that I wrongly claimed that his work “undermines the scientific case for manmade global warming”.

At no point in my piece did I say that it does. I merely quoted him, accurately, saying that his team’s work suggests that up to half the global warming observed in recent decades was due not to greenhouse gases but long-term ocean temperature cycles. These, he went on, have now entered a “cold” mode, and that as a result, we can expect more cold winters and a slight, though temporary, cooling. Prof Latif told me: “Global warming has paused,” adding that the extreme glacial retreats and icecap melting seen recently would for the time being cease.