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Mechanisms for transporting and dehydrating air across the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) are investigated with a conceptual two dimensional (2-D) model. The 2-D TTL model combines the Holton and Gettelman cold trap dehydration mechanism (Holton and Gettelman, 2001) with the two column convection model of Folkins and Martin (2005). We investigate...
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... Although both operational radiosondes and spaceborne Global Navigation Satellite System-Radio Occultation sounders are able to profile temperature well into the stratosphere, neither provide scientifically useful water vapor information in or above the upper troposphere. We note that several in situ instruments have obtained lower stratospheric water vapor observations from high-altitude aircraft, and these observations have been used for validation of the MLS water vapor product (e.g., Read et al., 2008;Weinstock et al., 2009). However, their campaign-based sampling is extremely sparse 30 both temporally and spatially, severely hampering their application to validation of long-term variability in global spaceborne observations. ...
The Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS), launched on NASA's Aura spacecraft in 2004, measures vertical profiles of the abundances of key atmospheric species from the upper troposphere to the mesosphere with daily near-global coverage. We review the first 15 years of the record of H2O and N2O measurements from the MLS 190-GHz subsystem (along with other 190-GHz information), with a focus on their long-term stability, largely based on comparisons with measurements from other sensors. These comparisons generally show signs of an increasing drift in the MLS version 4 (v4) H2O record starting around 2010. Specifically, comparisons with v4.1 measurements from the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment-Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS) indicate a ~2–3 %/decade drift over much of the stratosphere, increasing to as much as ~7 %/decade around 46 hPa. Larger drifts, of around 7–11 %/decade, are seen in comparisons to balloon-borne frost point hygrometer measurements in the lower stratosphere. In contrast, the MLS v4 N2O product is shown to be generally decreasing over the same period (when an increase in stratospheric N2O is expected, reflecting a secular growth in emissions), with a more pronounced drift in the lower stratosphere than that found for H2O. Detailed investigations of the behavior of the MLS 190-GHz subsystem reveal a drift in its sideband fraction (the relative sensitivity of the 190-GHz receiver to the two different parts of the microwave spectrum it observes). Our studies indicate that sideband fraction drift accounts for much of the observed changes in the MLS H2O product and some portion of the changes seen in N2O. The 190-GHz sideband fraction drift has been corrected in the new version 5 MLS algorithms, which have now been used to reprocess the entire MLS record. As a result of this correction, the MLS v5 H2O record shows no statistically significant drifts compared to ACE-FTS. However, statistically significant drifts remain between MLS v5 and frost point measurements, though they are reduced. Drifts in v5 N2O are about half the size of those in v4 but remain statistically significant. Scientists are advised to use MLS v5 data in all future studies. Quantification of inter-regional and seasonal-to-annual changes in MLS H2O and N2O will not be affected by the drift. However, caution is advised in studies using the MLS record to examine long-term (multi-year) variability and trends in either of these species, especially N2O; such studies should only be undertaken in consultation with the MLS team. Importantly, this drift does not affect any of the MLS observations made in other spectral regions such as O3, HCl, CO, ClO, or temperature.
... The transport pathways during the monsoon season have been reported earlier (e.g., Gettelman et al. 2002;Uma et al. 2013Uma et al. , 2014Randel et al. 2015). However, the water vapor in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) is controlled by the interplay between transport and freeze drying (Read et al. 2008). In addition to convection, advection, tropopause temperature, and ice water content also play a significant role in hydration or dehydration near the tropopause (Uma et al. 2014). ...
Seven years of high-resolution measurements of upper tropospheric humidity (UTH) from the Indian Geostationary satellite, Kalpana-1, are used to understand the hydration and dehydration processes during the active and break phases of the Indian summer monsoon (ISM). The active and break phases are identified using the TRMM-3B42 daily rainfall data over the Central Indian region. The most significant and new observation is that the upper troposphere is dry during the active and wet during the break phases of the ISM. Satellite measurements of humidity from Megha-Tropiques SAPHIR and water vapor mixing ratio from Aura microwave limb sounder also show dryness in the upper troposphere during the active and wetness during the break phases of ISM. The analysis illustrates that dehydration dominates during the active and hydration during the break phases. Cloud-aerosol lidar with orthogonal polarization data shows that cirrus (sub-categorized as sub-visible, thin, and thick) occurrence is more during the active phase as compared with the break phase. The dehydration mechanism during the active phase of ISM is attributed to the presence of cirrus. This study provides evidence that the upper troposphere shows dehydration during the active and hydration during the break phase of the ISM, thereby exhibiting intra-seasonal variability in the UTH.
... They iterated that pronounced quantitative differences exist, which would yield different interpretations of the relative importance of convection for lower stratospheric water vapour. 30 On the modelling side Read et al. (2008) derived an amplitude of about 25 h for the annual variation of δD slightly above the tropopause, using a conceptual two dimensional model incorporating slow ascent, extra-tropical mixing and convection effects. Eichinger et al. (2015b) implemented HDO into the EMAC model and showed a coherent tape recorder signal in δD up to about 27 km (∼19 hPa). ...
The annual variation of δD in the tropical lower stratosphere is a critical indicator for the relative importance of different processes contributing to the transport of water vapour through the cold tropical tropopause region into the stratosphere. Distinct observational discrepancies of the δD annual variation were visible in the works of Steinwagner et al. (2010) and Randel et al. (2012), focusing on MIPAS (Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding) and ACE-FTS (Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment-Fourier Transform Spectrometer) data, respectively. Here we reassess the discrepancies based on newer MIPAS and ACE-FTS data sets, showing for completeness also results from SMR (Sub-Millimetre Radiometer) observations and a ECHAM/MESSy (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Hamburg/Modular Earth Submodel System) Atmospheric Chemistry (EMAC) simulation (Eichinger et al., 2015b). Similar to the old analyses, the MIPAS data sets yield a pronounced annual variation (maximum about 75 ‰) while that derived from the ACE-FTS data sets is rather weak (maximum about 25 ‰). While all data sets exhibit the phase progression typical for the tape recorder the annual maximum in the ACE-FTS data set precedes that in the MIPAS data set by 2 to 3 months. We critically consider several possible reasons for the observed discrepancies, focusing primarily on the MIPAS data set. We show that the δD annual variation in the MIPAS data is up to an altitude of 40 hPa substantially impacted by a start altitude effect, i.e. dependency between the lowermost altitude where MIPAS retrievals are possible and retrieved data at higher altitudes. In addition, there is a mismatch in the vertical resolution of the MIPAS HDO and H2O data (being consistently better for HDO), which actually results in an artificial tape recorder-like signal in δD. Considering these MIPAS characteristics largely removes any discrepancies between the MIPAS and ACE-FTS data sets and confirms a δD tape recorder signal with an amplitude of about 25 ‰ in the lowermost stratosphere.
... The reported opposite trends of strato-al., 2001) suggest that our understanding of processes controlling water entering the stratosphere (H 2 O entry ) is incomplete. During the last years, our understanding of the processes that control water entering the stratosphere on annual and interannual timescales has improved greatly (Weinstock et al., 1995;Mote et al., 1996;Jensen and Pfister, 2004;Randel et al., 2006;Read et al., 2008). 5 However, the reported long-term trends remain unexplained (Rosenlof et al., 2001;Oltmans and Hofman, 1995;. ...
Water plays a major role in the chemistry and radiative budget of the stratosphere. Air enters the stratosphere predominantly in the tropics, where the very low temperatures around the tropopause constrain water vapour mixing ratios to a few parts per million. Observations of stratospheric water vapour show a large positive long-term trend, which can not be explained by change in tropopause temperatures. Trends in the partitioning between vapour and ice of water entering the stratosphere have been suggested to resolve this conundrum. We present measurements of stratospheric H_(2)O, HDO, CH_4 and CH_(3)D in the period 1991–2007 to evaluate this hypothesis. Because of fractionation processes during phase changes, the hydrogen isotopic composition of H_(2)O is a sensitive indicator of changes in the partitioning of vapour and ice. We find that the seasonal variations of H_(2)O are mirrored in the variation of the ratio of HDO to H_(2)O with a slope of the correlation consistent with water entering the stratosphere mainly as vapour. The variability in the fractionation over the entire observation period is well explained by variations in H_(2)O. The isotopic data allow concluding that the trend in ice arising from particulate water is no more than (0.01±0.13) ppmv/decade in the observation period. Our observations suggest that between 1991 and 2007 the contribution from changes in particulate water transported through the tropopause plays only a minor role in altering in the amount of water entering the stratosphere.
... Transport was dependent on the assumed washout rate for bromine. Read et al. [2004Read et al. [ , 2008 used a version of the model originally developed by Holton and Gettelman [2001] and Gettelman et al. [2002a] to look at transport of tracers such as water vapor and carbon monoxide seasonally in the TTL. Here we develop a 1-D model to explore a variety of short-lived species and look at the transport times into the stratosphere. ...
A one-dimensional model of vertical transport in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) is developed. The model uses vertical advection, a convective source, and a chemical sink to simulate the profiles of very short lived substances in the TTL. The model simulates evanescent profiles of short-lived hydrocarbon species observed by satellite and is also used to simulate short-lived bromine species. Tracers with chemical lifetimes of 25 days or longer have significant concentrations in the stratosphere, and vertical advection is critical. Convection is important up to its peak altitude, nearly 19 km. Convection dominates the distribution of species with lifetimes less than 25 days. The annual cycle of species with lifetimes longer than 25 days is governed primarily by the variations of vertical velocity, not convection. This is particularly true for carbon monoxide, where a seasonal cycle in the lower stratosphere of the right phase is produced without variations in tropospheric emissions. An analysis of critical short-lived bromine species (CH2Br2 and CHBr3) indicates that substantial amounts of these tracers may get advected into the lower stratosphere as source gases at 18 km, and are estimated to contribute 2.8 pptv (1.1–4.1) to stratospheric bromine.
... The precisions of water vapor and CO concentration retrievals in the TTL (100 hPa) are about 15% and 30% respectively. Since the data set opened to the public, EOS MLS water vapor and CO observations have been widely used in the TTL and the lower stratosphere studies [e.g., Schoeberl et al., 2006;Jiang et al., 2007;Read et al., 2008]. Here monthly mean water vapor and CO mixing ratios at 146 hPa and 100 hPa in 10°Â 10°grids in Figures 1 and 2 are calculated from four full years (2005 -2008) of version 2.2 MLS retrievals. ...
There are some interesting day versus night differences in the water vapor and carbon monoxide concentrations near the tropopause over tropical land and ocean from 4 years of EOS Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) observations. To interpret these differences, the diurnal cycle of deep convection reaching near tropical tropopause summarized from a decade of tropical rainfall measuring mission (TRMM) observations. We also present the diurnal cycle of the cold point tropopause temperature and height derived from 2 years of constellation observing system for meteorology ionosphere and climate (COSMIC) GPS temperature profiles, the day versus night differences of occurrence of thin clouds from 2 years of cloud-aerosol lidar and infrared pathfinder satellite observations (CALIPSO) and 16 years of stratospheric aerosol and gaseous experiment (SAGE) II. In the tropical upper troposphere, day versus night differences of water vapor and carbon monoxide are consistent with the diurnal cycle of the vertical transport of water vapor and carbon monoxide–rich air from the surface by deep convection. However, in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) over land, day versus night differences of water vapor concentration are more consistent with the diurnal variations of temperature in a saturated TTL, which is related to the diurnal cycle of cooling in the TTL induced by deep convection. The day versus night differences of occurrences of thin clouds in the TTL are also consistent with the freeze drying, controlled by the diurnal cycles of temperature in the TTL.
We describe the publicly available dataset from the Global OZone Chemistry And Related Datasets for the Stratosphere (GOZCARDS) project, and provide some results, with a~focus on hydrogen chloride (HCl), water vapor (H2O), and ozone (O3). This dataset is a global long-term stratospheric Earth System Data Record (ESDR), consisting of monthly zonal mean time series starting as early as 1979. The data records are based on high quality measurements from several NASA satellite instruments and ACE-FTS on SCISAT. We examine consistency aspects between the various datasets. To merge ozone records, the time series are debiased by calculating average offsets with respect to SAGE II during periods of measurement overlap, whereas for other species, the merging derives from an averaging procedure based on overlap periods. The GOZCARDS files contain mixing ratios on a common pressure/latitude grid, as well as standard errors and other diagnostics; we also present estimates of systematic uncertainties in the merged products. Monthly mean temperatures for GOZCARDS were also produced, based directly on data from the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA).
The GOZCARDS HCl merged product comes from HALOE, ACE-FTS and (for the lower stratosphere) Aura MLS data. After a~rapid rise in upper stratospheric HCl in the early 1990s, the rate of decrease in this region for 1997–2010 was between 0.4 and 0.7% yr−1. On shorter timescales (6 to 8 years), the rate of decrease peaked in 2004–2005 at about 1% yr−1, and has since levelled off, at ~0.5 yr−1. With a delay of 6–7 years, these changes roughly follow total surface chlorine, whose behavior vs. time arises from inhomogeneous changes in the source gases. Since the late 1990s, HCl decreases in the lower stratosphere have occurred with pronounced latitudinal variability at rates sometimes exceeding 1–2 yr−1. There has been a significant reversal in the changes of lower stratospheric HCl abundances and columns for 2005–2010, in particular at northern midlatitudes and in the deep tropics, where short-term increases are observed. However, lower stratospheric HCl tendencies appear to be reversing after about 2011, with (short-term) decreases at northern midlatitudes and some increasing tendencies at southern midlatitudes.
For GOZCARDS H2O, covering the stratosphere and mesosphere, the same instruments as for HCl are used, along with UARS MLS stratospheric H2O data (1991–1993). We display seasonal to decadal-type variability in H2O from 22 years of data. In the upper mesosphere, the anti-correlation between H2O and solar flux is now clearly visible over two full solar cycles. Lower stratospheric tropical H2O has exhibited two periods of increasing values, followed by fairly sharp drops, the well-documented 2000–2001 decrease, and another recent decrease in 2011–2013. Tropical decadal variability peaks just above the tropopause. Between 1991 and 2013, both in the tropics and on a near-global basis, H2O has decreased by ~ 5–10% in the lower stratosphere, but about a 10% increase is observed in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere. However, recent tendencies may not hold for the long-term, and the addition of a few years of data can significantly modify trend results.
For ozone, we used SAGE I, SAGE II, HALOE, UARS and Aura MLS, and ACE-FTS data to produce a~merged record from late 1979 onward, using SAGE II as the primary reference for aligning (debiasing) the other datasets. Other adjustments were needed in the upper stratosphere to circumvent temporal drifts in SAGE II O3 after June 2000, as a result of the (temperature-dependent) data conversion from a density/altitude to a mixing ratio/pressure grid. Unlike the 2 to 3% increase in near-global column ozone after the late 1990s reported by some, GOZCARDS stratospheric column O3 values do not show a recent upturn of more than 0.5 to 1%; continuing studies of changes in global ozone profiles, as well as ozone columns, are warranted.
A brief mention is also made of other currently available, commonly-formatted GOZCARDS satellite data records for stratospheric composition, namely those for N2O and HNO3.
Building on previously published details of the laboratory calibrations of the Harvard Lyman-alpha photofragment fluorescence hygrometer (HWV) on the NASA ER-2 and WB-57 aircraft, we describe here the validation process for HWV, which includes laboratory calibrations and intercomparisons with other Harvard water vapor instruments at water vapor mixing ratios from 0 to 10 ppmv, followed by in-flight intercomparisons with the same Harvard hygrometers. The observed agreement exhibited in the laboratory and during intercomparisons helps corroborate the accuracy of HWV. In light of the validated accuracy of HWV, we present and evaluate a series of intercomparisons with satellite and balloon borne water vapor instruments made from the upper troposphere to the lower stratosphere in the tropics and midlatitudes. Whether on the NASA ER-2 or WB-57 aircraft, HWV has consistently measured about 1-1.5 ppmv higher than the balloon-borne NOAA/ESRL/GMD frost point hygrometer (CMDL), the NOAA Cryogenic Frost point Hygrometer (CFH), and the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) on the Aura satellite in regions of the atmosphere where water vapor is
1] The processes that fix the fractionation of the stable isotopologues of water in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) are studied using cloud‐resolving model simulations of an idealized equatorial Walker circulation with an imposed Brewer‐Dobson circulation. This simulation framework allows the explicit representation of the convective and microphysical processes at work in the TTL. In this model, the microphysical transfer of the isotopologues (here, HD 16 O and H 2 18 O) among water vapor and condensed phase hydrometeors is explicitly represented along with those of the standard isotopologue (H 2 16 O) during all microphysical interactions. The simulated isotopic ratios of HD 16 O in water vapor are consistent with observations in both magnitude and the vertical structure in the TTL. When a seasonal cycle is included in the Brewer‐Dobson circulation, both the water vapor mixing ratio and the isotopic ratios of water vapor display a seasonal cycle as well. The amplitude and phase of the seasonal cycle in HD 16 O are comparable to those observed. The results suggest that both the sublimation of relatively enriched ice associated with deep convection and fractionation by cirrus cloud formation affect the isotopic composition of water vapor in the TTL and its seasonal cycle.
