Importance of the Saharan heat low in controlling the North Atlantic free tropospheric humidity budget deduced from IASI δD observations
The isotopic composition of water vapour in the North Atlantic free troposphere is investigated with Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) measurements of the D ∕ H ratio ( δ D) above the ocean. We show that in the vicinity of West Africa, the seasonality of δ D is particularly strong...
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:acp57419 2023-05-15T17:27:50+02:00 Importance of the Saharan heat low in controlling the North Atlantic free tropospheric humidity budget deduced from IASI δD observations Lacour, Jean-Lionel Flamant, Cyrille Risi, Camille Clerbaux, Cathy Coheur, Pierre-François 2018-09-12 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-9645-2017 https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/17/9645/2017/ eng eng doi:10.5194/acp-17-9645-2017 https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/17/9645/2017/ eISSN: 1680-7324 Text 2018 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-9645-2017 2019-12-24T09:51:14Z The isotopic composition of water vapour in the North Atlantic free troposphere is investigated with Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) measurements of the D ∕ H ratio ( δ D) above the ocean. We show that in the vicinity of West Africa, the seasonality of δ D is particularly strong (130 ‰), which is related with the influence of the Saharan heat low (SHL) during summertime. The SHL indeed largely influences the dynamic in that region by producing deep turbulent mixing layers, yielding a specific water vapour isotopic footprint. The influence of the SHL on the isotopic budget is analysed on various time and space scales and is shown to be large, highlighting the importance of the SHL dynamics on the moistening and the HDO enrichment of the free troposphere over the North Atlantic. The potential influence of the SHL is also investigated on the inter-annual scale as we also report important variations in δ D above the Canary archipelago region. We interpret the variability in the enrichment, using backward trajectory analyses, in terms of the ratio of air masses coming from the North Atlantic and air masses coming from the African continent. Finally, the interest of IASI high sampling capabilities is further illustrated by presenting spatial distributions of δ D and humidity above the North Atlantic from which we show that the different sources and dehydration pathways controlling the humidity can be disentangled thanks to the added value of δ D observations. More generally, our results demonstrate the utility of δ D observations obtained from the IASI sounder to gain insight into the hydrological cycle processes in the West African region. Text North Atlantic Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 17 15 9645 9663 |
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Copernicus Publications: E-Journals |
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ftcopernicus |
language |
English |
description |
The isotopic composition of water vapour in the North Atlantic free troposphere is investigated with Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) measurements of the D ∕ H ratio ( δ D) above the ocean. We show that in the vicinity of West Africa, the seasonality of δ D is particularly strong (130 ‰), which is related with the influence of the Saharan heat low (SHL) during summertime. The SHL indeed largely influences the dynamic in that region by producing deep turbulent mixing layers, yielding a specific water vapour isotopic footprint. The influence of the SHL on the isotopic budget is analysed on various time and space scales and is shown to be large, highlighting the importance of the SHL dynamics on the moistening and the HDO enrichment of the free troposphere over the North Atlantic. The potential influence of the SHL is also investigated on the inter-annual scale as we also report important variations in δ D above the Canary archipelago region. We interpret the variability in the enrichment, using backward trajectory analyses, in terms of the ratio of air masses coming from the North Atlantic and air masses coming from the African continent. Finally, the interest of IASI high sampling capabilities is further illustrated by presenting spatial distributions of δ D and humidity above the North Atlantic from which we show that the different sources and dehydration pathways controlling the humidity can be disentangled thanks to the added value of δ D observations. More generally, our results demonstrate the utility of δ D observations obtained from the IASI sounder to gain insight into the hydrological cycle processes in the West African region. |
format |
Text |
author |
Lacour, Jean-Lionel Flamant, Cyrille Risi, Camille Clerbaux, Cathy Coheur, Pierre-François |
spellingShingle |
Lacour, Jean-Lionel Flamant, Cyrille Risi, Camille Clerbaux, Cathy Coheur, Pierre-François Importance of the Saharan heat low in controlling the North Atlantic free tropospheric humidity budget deduced from IASI δD observations |
author_facet |
Lacour, Jean-Lionel Flamant, Cyrille Risi, Camille Clerbaux, Cathy Coheur, Pierre-François |
author_sort |
Lacour, Jean-Lionel |
title |
Importance of the Saharan heat low in controlling the North Atlantic free tropospheric humidity budget deduced from IASI δD observations |
title_short |
Importance of the Saharan heat low in controlling the North Atlantic free tropospheric humidity budget deduced from IASI δD observations |
title_full |
Importance of the Saharan heat low in controlling the North Atlantic free tropospheric humidity budget deduced from IASI δD observations |
title_fullStr |
Importance of the Saharan heat low in controlling the North Atlantic free tropospheric humidity budget deduced from IASI δD observations |
title_full_unstemmed |
Importance of the Saharan heat low in controlling the North Atlantic free tropospheric humidity budget deduced from IASI δD observations |
title_sort |
importance of the saharan heat low in controlling the north atlantic free tropospheric humidity budget deduced from iasi δd observations |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-9645-2017 https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/17/9645/2017/ |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_source |
eISSN: 1680-7324 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/acp-17-9645-2017 https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/17/9645/2017/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-9645-2017 |
container_title |
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics |
container_volume |
17 |
container_issue |
15 |
container_start_page |
9645 |
op_container_end_page |
9663 |
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1766120132803821568 |