Abstract The middle atmosphere water vapor distribution has been the subject of intense investigation in recent years. A host of measurements have been made from balloons via remote sensing methods operating in the infrared and by in situ techniques which use the frost point hygrometer and Lyman-α stimulated fluorescence methods. In addition, rocket and satellite experiments based on the solar occultation and thermal emission approaches have been launched in the last several years giving the prospect of obtaining a reasonable global data base in the future. Most of these measurements have been made in the stratosphere. The only global data set released thus far is from the Nimbus 7 LIMS experiment which operated from late October 1978 to late May 1979 and provided H2O measurements over the 64°S to 84°N range. The most extensive mesospheric H2O data base currently available has been obtained using ground-based microwave measurements and rocketborne infrared and mass spectrometer results. These data apply mainly to mid and high latitudes. A limited amount of mesospheric data have also been collected from the shuttle Spacelab 1 and 3 missions by the Grille Spectrometer and ATMOS experiments, respectively. The LIMS data have been used to construct monthly and seasonal zonal mean reference stratospheric profiles over selected latitude bands, and the other available data sets have been combined with LIMS to produce an interim reference profile from the tropopause to 80-km for the mid latitude region averaged over the winter and spring time periods. The profiles show the presence of a hygropause near 50-mb pressure in the Tropics, a relatively constant mixing ratio distribution with height of 4.7 ppmv to 5 ppmv in the mid and high latitude stratosphere, and a decrease in the mid-latitude mesosphere to 1 ppmv at ≈ 80-km. This distribution should be carefully evaluated as more data become available.


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    Titel :

    An interim reference model for the middle atmosphere water vapor distribution


    Beteiligte:

    Erschienen in:

    Erscheinungsdatum :

    1987-01-01


    Format / Umfang :

    14 pages




    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)


    Format :

    Elektronische Ressource


    Sprache :

    Englisch