A Multi-Satellite Approach to Investigate the Water Vapour Feedback to Temperature Change
Abstract
We combine data from the Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder (AIRS) on the Aqua platform and the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) on the Metop platform to investigate the sensitivity of atmospheric water vapor to surface temperature changes, a long-standing controversial issue in climate studies. Differently from previous works that could only rely on sparse or low resolution observations, the higher vertical resolution, the uniform spatial coverage and the large temporal sampling of the two combined hyper-spectral sounders enable us to perform an unprecedented comprehensive investigation which highlights a large spatial and vertical gradient in the magnitude and sign of the correlation between these two variables. We finally derive a conclusion on the overall tropical water vapor response and discuss its implications in the contest of the radiation energy budget.
- Publication:
-
Earth Observation and Water Cycle Science
- Pub Date:
- November 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009ESASP.674E...8G