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Retrievals of the water vapor content in the upper troposphere and the lower stratosphere from SCIAMACHY limb measurements
Alexei Rozanov(1), Mark Weber(1), Heinrich Bovensmann(1) and John Burrows(1) (1) University of Bremen, P.O. Box 33 04 40, D-28334 Bremen, Germany
Abstract
Stratospheric water vapor plays an important role in determining radiative
and chemical properties of the middle atmosphere. Furthermore, it can be used
as tracer when studying the exchange between the stratosphere and the
troposphere as well as large scale circulations. The major source of the
global information on the stratospheric water vapor provide satellite
measurements. In the previous studies, measurements of the solar radiation
transmitted through the atmosphere, measurements of the emitted radiance in
the thermal infrared spectral range, or microwave techniques were used to
retrieve stratospheric water vapor amounts.
This study presents a novel approach allowing the vertical distributions
of the stratospheric water vapor to be retrieved from the measurements of the
scattered solar radiation in the near infra red spectral range as performed by
the Scanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY
(SCIAMACHY) in limb viewing geometry. We present a retrieval algorithm
capable to gain the vertical distributions of the water vapor in the lower
stratosphere and upper troposphere (between about 12 and 23 km) from
SCIAMACHY limb measurements. The sensitivity of the retrieval
algorithm is investigated. The retrieved vertical distributions of the water
vapor are compared to the results of independent measurements (remote and
in situ) and to the model simulations.
Workshop presentation
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