How do the water vapor and carbon monoxide “tape recorders” start near the tropical tropopause?

	Become an AGU Member Subscribe to AGU Journals



Read Full Article (file size: 644173 bytes) Cited by GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L09804, doi:10.1029/2006GL029234, 2007 How do the water vapor and carbon monoxide “tape recorders” start near the tropical tropopause? Chuntao Liu Department of Meteorology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA Ed Zipser Department of Meteorology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA Tim Garrett Department of Meteorology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA Jonathan H. Jiang Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA Hui Su Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA Abstract This paper evaluates geo-seasonal relationships in tropical deep convection using radar and infrared data from Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), near tropopause thin clouds from Stratospheric Air and Gas Experiment (SAGE) II, water vapor and carbon monoxide (CO) from the Earth Observing System (EOS) Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS), and the tropopause temperature from National Center of Environment Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis data. Geo-seasonal variations in MLS water vapor at 146 hPa and 100 hPa are negatively correlated, which points to dehydration at the tropical tropopause. Water vapor at 146 hPa is highly correlated with tropical deep convection and thin clouds, but at 100 hPa it is more highly correlated with the tropopause temperature. There is a high correlation between the geo-seasonal variations of 14–16 km thin cloud and cold clouds from deep convection. However, at 16–18 km, thin clouds are highly correlated with the tropopause temperature as well as with deep convection. There is a semi-annual cycle in CO concentrations at 100 hPa and 146 hPa. The variability is consistent with the convolved seasonal variation of deep convection and surface biomass burning. The annual cycle of water vapor at 100 hPa correlates with the seasonal variability of “freezing and drying” between 146 hPa and 100 hPa, which in turn correlates with changes in tropopause temperature associated with deep convective lifting or large scale ascent. Received 4 January 2007; accepted 5 April 2007; published 4 May 2007. Keywords: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission; deep convection; tropopause; water vapor; thin clouds; stratospheric dehydration. Index Terms: 0322 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Constituent sources and sinks; 0368 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Troposphere: constituent transport and chemistry; 3362 Atmospheric Processes: Stratosphere/troposphere interactions; 3314 Atmospheric Processes: Convective processes. Read Full Article (file size: 644173 bytes) Cited by Citation: Liu, C., E. Zipser, T. Garrett, J. H. Jiang, and H. Su (2007), How do the water vapor and carbon monoxide “tape recorders” start near the tropical tropopause?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L09804, doi:10.1029/2006GL029234. Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union.

Abstract