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Titel |
The impact of temperature vertical structure on trajectory modeling of stratospheric water vapor |
VerfasserIn |
T. Wang, A. E. Dessler, M. R. Schoeberl, W. J. Randel, J.-E. Kim |
Medientyp |
Artikel
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Sprache |
Englisch
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ISSN |
1680-7316
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Digitales Dokument |
URL |
Erschienen |
In: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ; 15, no. 6 ; Nr. 15, no. 6 (2015-03-31), S.3517-3526 |
Datensatznummer |
250119586
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Publikation (Nr.) |
copernicus.org/acp-15-3517-2015.pdf |
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Zusammenfassung |
Lagrangian trajectories driven by reanalysis meteorological fields are
frequently used to study water vapor (H2O) in the stratosphere, in which
the tropical cold-point temperatures regulate the amount of H2O entering
the stratosphere. Therefore, the accuracy of temperatures in the tropical
tropopause layer (TTL) is of great importance for understanding stratospheric
H2O abundances. Currently, most reanalyses, such as the NASA MERRA
(Modern Era Retrospective – analysis for Research and Applications), only
provide temperatures with ~ 1.2 km vertical resolution in the TTL,
which has been argued to miss finer vertical structure in the tropopause and
therefore introduce uncertainties in our understanding of stratospheric
H2O. In this paper, we quantify this uncertainty by comparing the
Lagrangian trajectory prediction of H2O using MERRA temperatures on
standard model levels (traj.MER-T) to those using GPS temperatures
at finer vertical resolution (traj.GPS-T), and those using adjusted
MERRA temperatures with finer vertical structures induced by waves
(traj.MER-Twave). It turns out that by using temperatures with finer
vertical structure in the tropopause, the trajectory model more realistically
simulates the dehydration of air entering the stratosphere. But the effect on
H2O abundances is relatively minor: compared with traj.MER-T,
traj.GPS-T tends to dry air by ~ 0.1 ppmv, while
traj.MER-Twave tends to dry air by 0.2–0.3 ppmv. Despite these
differences in absolute values of predicted H2O and vertical dehydration
patterns, there is virtually no difference in the interannual variability in
different runs. Overall, we find that a tropopause temperature with finer
vertical structure has limited impact on predicted stratospheric H2O. |
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