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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L04814, doi:10.1029/2006GL027899, 2007

Observations of deep convective influence on stratospheric water vapor and its isotopic composition

Thomas F. Hanisco

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA


E. J. Moyer

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA


E. M. Weinstock

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA


J. M. St. Clair

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA


D. S. Sayres

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA


J. B. Smith

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA


R. Lockwood

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA


J. G. Anderson

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA


A. E. Dessler

Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA


F. N. Keutsch

Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA


J. R. Spackman

Chemical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, Boulder, Colorado, USA


W. G. Read

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA


T. P. Bui

NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California, USA


Abstract

In situ observations of H2O and HDO in the midlatitude stratosphere are used to evaluate the role of convection in determining the stratospheric water budget. The observations show that water vapor in the overworld stratosphere (potential temperature > 380 K) is isotopically heavier than expected. Measurements in an airmass with anomalously high concentrations of water vapor show isotopic water signatures that are characteristic of evaporated ice lofted from the troposphere during convective storms. Observed H2O and HDO concentrations in the plume of enhanced water and in the background stratosphere suggest that extratropical convection can account for a significant fraction of the observed water vapor in the summertime overworld stratosphere above the mid-North American continent.

Received 16 August 2006; accepted 23 January 2007; published 27 February 2007.

Keywords: convection; water isotopes; water transport.

Index Terms: 3362 Atmospheric Processes: Stratosphere/troposphere interactions; 3314 Atmospheric Processes: Convective processes; 0340 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Middle atmosphere: composition and chemistry; 0341 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Middle atmosphere: constituent transport and chemistry (3334).


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Citation: Hanisco, T. F., et al. (2007), Observations of deep convective influence on stratospheric water vapor and its isotopic composition, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L04814, doi:10.1029/2006GL027899.