Search results for "water vapor"

Measurement of low-ppm mixing ratios of water vapor in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere using chemical ionization mass spectrometry

2018

A chemical ionization mass spectrometer (CIMS) instrument has been developed for the fast, precise, and accurate measurement of water vapor (H2O) at low mixing ratios in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UT/LS). A low-pressure flow of sample air passes through an ionization volume containing an α-particle radiation source, resulting in a cascade of ion-molecule reactions that produce hydronium ions (H3O+) from ambient H2O. The production of H3O+ ions from ambient H2O depends on pressure and flow through the ion source, which were tightly controlled in order to maintain the measurement sensitivity independent of changes in the airborne sampling environment. The instrument w…

2012

Abstract. A compact mobile aerosol research laboratory (MoLa) for stationary and mobile measurements of aerosol and trace gas characteristics was developed at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) in Mainz, Germany. Major efforts were made to design an aerosol inlet system which is optimized and characterised for both, stationary and mobile measurements using a particle loss modelling approach. The instrumentation on board allows the determination of a multitude of physical and chemical aerosol parameters, for example particle number and mass concentration (PM1/2.5/10), particle size distributions in the diameter range 6 nm up to 32 μm, and chemical composition of the sub-micron aer…

Land surface temperature retrieval from thermal infrared data: An assessment in the context of the Surface Processes and Ecosystem Changes Through Re…

2005

[1] SPECTRA (Surface Processes and Ecosystem Changes Through Response Analysis) is one of the core candidate missions which is being proposed for implementation in the European Space Agency (ESA) Earth Explorer program of research oriented missions. The scientific objective of the SPECTRA mission is to describe, understand, and model the role of terrestrial vegetation in the global carbon cycle and its response to climate variability under the increasing pressure of human activity. The SPECTRA satellite will embark an optical hyperspectral payload covering the solar spectral range (0.4 to 2.4 μm) and thermal infrared region (10.3 to 12.3 μm). This paper is focused on the land surface temper…

Influence of air mass history on the columnar aerosol properties at Valencia, Spain

2007

[1] The physical and radiative properties of atmospheric aerosols have been obtained in Valencia (latitude 39.508°, longitude −0.418°, 60 m a. s. l.), a city of the Spanish Mediterranean coast, by the inversion of direct solar irradiance and diffuse sky irradiance measurements made with a CIMEL CE318 system, from January 2002 to July 2005. The data acquired by the CE318 were used to determine the instantaneous values of the aerosol optical depth (AOD), the columnar water vapor content (w) and the Angstrom wavelength exponent (α). The SKYRAD code was used to obtain the size distribution, the asymmetry parameter, the complex refractive index and the single scattering albedo of the aerosols. B…

Lagrangian simulations of stable isotopes in water vapor: An evaluation of nonequilibrium fractionation in the Craig-Gordon model

2009

[1] The Craig-Gordon model is the basis for the parameterization of water isotope fractionation during evaporation from the ocean in many atmospheric isotope models. Its exact formulation (e.g., with respect to the nonequilibrium fractionation factor k) is mainly based on theoretical considerations and not very well constrained by observations. This study addresses this issue by combining a recently developed Lagrangian moisture source analysis with a Craig-Gordon fractionation parameterization for the identified evaporation events in order to model isotope ratios in water vapor. This technique is applied to 45 measurement days of isotopes in water vapor at Rehovot (Israel) during the years…

Air parcel trajectory analysis of stable isotopes in water vapor in the eastern Mediterranean

2008

[1] With the help of a Lagrangian moisture source diagnostic, linkages between stable isotope measurements in water vapor in Rehovot (Israel), with typical sampling times of 8 hours, and the meteorological conditions in the evaporation regions are established. These linkages can be formulated in quantitative terms, and are also quantitatively comparable with other data from isotope measurements over the ocean and with simple theoretical calculations. On the one hand, a strong negative correlation (r = −0.82) between relative humidity with respect to sea surface temperature in the source regions and measured deuterium excess (d) is found, corroborating results from isotope global circulation…

Ice supersaturations and cirrus cloud crystal numbers

2009

Upper tropospheric observations outside and inside of cirrus clouds indicate water vapour mixing ratios sometimes exceeding water saturation. Relative humidities over ice (RHice) of up to and more than 200% have been reported from aircraft and balloon measurements in recent years. From these observations a lively discussion continues on whether there is a lack of understanding of ice cloud microphysics or whether the water measurements are tainted with large uncertainties or flaws. Here, RHice in clear air and in ice clouds is investigated. Strict quality-checked aircraft in situ observations of RHice were performed during 28 flights in tropical, mid-latitude and Arctic field experiments in…

In situ observation of new particle formation (NPF) in the tropical tropopause layer of the 2017 Asian monsoon anticyclone - Part 2: NPF inside ice c…

2021

From 27 July to 10 August 2017, the airborne StratoClim mission took place in Kathmandu, Nepal, where eight mission flights were conducted with the M-55 Geophysica up to altitudes of 20 km. New particle formation (NPF) was identified by the abundant presence of nucleation-mode aerosols, with particle diameters dp smaller than 15 nm, which were in-situ-detected by means of condensation nuclei (CN) counter techniques. NPF fields in clear skies as well as in the presence of cloud ice particles (dp > 3 µm) were encountered at upper troposphere–lowermost stratosphere (UTLS) levels and within the Asian monsoon anticyclone (AMA). NPF-generated nucleation-mode particles in elevated concentration…

Potential of airborne lidar measurements for cirrus cloud studies

2014

Abstract. Aerosol and water vapour measurements were performed with the lidar system WALES of Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) in October and November 2010 during the first mission with the new German research aircraft G55-HALO. Curtains composed of lidar profiles beneath the aircraft show the vertical and horizontal distribution and variability of water vapour mixing ratio and backscatter ratio above Germany. Two missions on 3 and 4 November 2010 were selected to derive the water vapour mixing ratio inside cirrus clouds from the lidar instrument. A good agreement was found with in situ observations performed on a second research aircraft flying below HALO. ECMWF analysis tem…

The Fifth International Workshop on Ice Nucleation phase 2 (FIN-02): Laboratory intercomparison of ice nucleation measurements

2018

The second phase of the Fifth International Ice Nucleation Workshop (FIN-02) involved the gathering of a large number of researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology's Aerosol Interactions and Dynamics of the Atmosphere (AIDA) facility to promote characterization and understanding of ice nucleation measurements made by a variety of methods used worldwide. Compared to the previous workshop in 2007, participation was doubled, reflecting a vibrant research area. Experimental methods involved sampling of aerosol particles by direct processing ice nucleation measuring systems from the same volume of air in separate experiments using different ice nucleating particle (INP) types, and coll…