Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 203):
Things of this type have an important role in discourse, because they function anaphorically to refer to (and at the same time to classify) previous sections of text interpreted as projection. For example:[Graham's] simulated atmosphere evolved in much the same way as the real atmosphere had – the temperature rose, and evaporation and rainfall over the tropical ocean increased closely matching actual records.Based on these findings, Graham concludes that the increases in sea surface temperatures could well have caused the intensification of the hydrological cycle, explaining the warming.