Articles | Volume 17, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-6113-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-6113-2017
Research article
 | 
17 May 2017
Research article |  | 17 May 2017

Enhanced stratospheric water vapor over the summertime continental United States and the role of overshooting convection

Robert L. Herman, Eric A. Ray, Karen H. Rosenlof, Kristopher M. Bedka, Michael J. Schwartz, William G. Read, Robert F. Troy, Keith Chin, Lance E. Christensen, Dejian Fu, Robert A. Stachnik, T. Paul Bui, and Jonathan M. Dean-Day

Related authors

Comparison of optimal estimation HDO∕H2O retrievals from AIRS with ORACLES measurements
Robert L. Herman, John Worden, David Noone, Dean Henze, Kevin Bowman, Karen Cady-Pereira, Vivienne H. Payne, Susan S. Kulawik, and Dejian Fu
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 1825–1834, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-1825-2020,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-1825-2020, 2020
Short summary
Retrievals of tropospheric ozone profiles from the synergism of AIRS and OMI: methodology and validation
Dejian Fu, Susan S. Kulawik, Kazuyuki Miyazaki, Kevin W. Bowman, John R. Worden, Annmarie Eldering, Nathaniel J. Livesey, Joao Teixeira, Fredrick W. Irion, Robert L. Herman, Gregory B. Osterman, Xiong Liu, Pieternel F. Levelt, Anne M. Thompson, and Ming Luo
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 5587–5605, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5587-2018,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5587-2018, 2018
A microphysics guide to cirrus clouds – Part 1: Cirrus types
Martina Krämer, Christian Rolf, Anna Luebke, Armin Afchine, Nicole Spelten, Anja Costa, Jessica Meyer, Martin Zöger, Jessica Smith, Robert L. Herman, Bernhard Buchholz, Volker Ebert, Darrel Baumgardner, Stephan Borrmann, Marcus Klingebiel, and Linnea Avallone
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 3463–3483, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-3463-2016,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-3463-2016, 2016
Short summary
The AquaVIT-1 intercomparison of atmospheric water vapor measurement techniques
D. W. Fahey, R.-S. Gao, O. Möhler, H. Saathoff, C. Schiller, V. Ebert, M. Krämer, T. Peter, N. Amarouche, L. M. Avallone, R. Bauer, Z. Bozóki, L. E. Christensen, S. M. Davis, G. Durry, C. Dyroff, R. L. Herman, S. Hunsmann, S. M. Khaykin, P. Mackrodt, J. Meyer, J. B. Smith, N. Spelten, R. F. Troy, H. Vömel, S. Wagner, and F. G. Wienhold
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 7, 3177–3213, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-3177-2014,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-3177-2014, 2014
Aircraft validation of Aura Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer retrievals of HDO / H2O
R. L. Herman, J. E. Cherry, J. Young, J. M. Welker, D. Noone, S. S. Kulawik, and J. Worden
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 7, 3127–3138, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-3127-2014,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-3127-2014, 2014

Related subject area

Subject: Gases | Research Activity: Field Measurements | Altitude Range: Stratosphere | Science Focus: Chemistry (chemical composition and reactions)
Ozone and water vapor variability in the polar middle atmosphere observed with ground-based microwave radiometers
Guochun Shi, Witali Krochin, Eric Sauvageat, and Gunter Stober
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 9137–9159, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9137-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9137-2023, 2023
Short summary
South Pole Station ozonesondes: variability and trends in the springtime Antarctic ozone hole 1986–2021
Bryan J. Johnson, Patrick Cullis, John Booth, Irina Petropavlovskikh, Glen McConville, Birgit Hassler, Gary A. Morris, Chance Sterling, and Samuel Oltmans
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 3133–3146, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-3133-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-3133-2023, 2023
Short summary
Global seasonal distribution of CH2Br2 and CHBr3 in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere
Markus Jesswein, Rafael P. Fernandez, Lucas Berná, Alfonso Saiz-Lopez, Jens-Uwe Grooß, Ryan Hossaini, Eric C. Apel, Rebecca S. Hornbrook, Elliot L. Atlas, Donald R. Blake, Stephen Montzka, Timo Keber, Tanja Schuck, Thomas Wagenhäuser, and Andreas Engel
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 15049–15070, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15049-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15049-2022, 2022
Short summary
Redistribution of total reactive nitrogen in the lowermost Arctic stratosphere during the cold winter 2015/2016
Helmut Ziereis, Peter Hoor, Jens-Uwe Grooß, Andreas Zahn, Greta Stratmann, Paul Stock, Michael Lichtenstern, Jens Krause, Vera Bense, Armin Afchine, Christian Rolf, Wolfgang Woiwode, Marleen Braun, Jörn Ungermann, Andreas Marsing, Christiane Voigt, Andreas Engel, Björn-Martin Sinnhuber, and Hermann Oelhaf
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 3631–3654, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3631-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3631-2022, 2022
Short summary
Comparison of inorganic chlorine in the Antarctic and Arctic lowermost stratosphere by separate late winter aircraft measurements
Markus Jesswein, Heiko Bozem, Hans-Christoph Lachnitt, Peter Hoor, Thomas Wagenhäuser, Timo Keber, Tanja Schuck, and Andreas Engel
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 17225–17241, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17225-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17225-2021, 2021
Short summary

Cited articles

Adams, D. K. and Comrie, A. C.: The North American Monsoon, B. Amer. Meteorol. Soc., 78, 2197–2213, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI4071.1, 1997.
Anderson, J. G., Wilmouth, D. M., Smith, J. B., and Sayres, D. S.: UV Dosage Levels in Summer: Increased Risk of Ozone Loss from Convectively Injected Water Vapor, Science, 337, 835–839, 2012.
Bedka, K. M., Brunner, J., Dworak, R., Feltz, W., Otkin, J., and Greenwald, T.: Objective satellite-based overshooting top detection using infrared window channel brightness temperature gradients, J. Appl. Meteor. Climatol., 49, 181–202, 2010.
Bedka, K. M., Wang, C., Rogers, R., Carey, L., Feltz, W., and Kanak, J.: Examining deep convective cloud evolution using total lightning, WSR-88D, and GOES-14 super rapid scan datasets, Weather Forecast., 30, 571–590, https://doi.org/10.1175/WAF-D-14-00062.1, 2015.
Boucher, O., Randall, D., Artaxo, P., Bretherton, C., Feingold, G., Forster, P., Kerminen, V.-M., Kondo, Y., Liao, H., Lohmann, U., Rasch, P., Satheesh, S. K., Sherwood, S., Stevens B., and Zhang, X. Y.: Clouds and Aerosols, in: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Stocker, T. F., Qin, D., Plattner, G.-K., Tignor, M., Allen, S. K., Boschung, J., Nauels, A., Xia, Y., Bex, V., and Midgley, P. M., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 2013.
Download
Short summary
This study reports new aircraft field observations of elevated water vapor greater than 10 ppmv in the overworld stratosphere over the summertime continental US. Back trajectories from the flight track intersect overshooting convective tops within the previous 1 to 7 days, suggesting that ice is convectively and irreversibly transported to the stratosphere in the most energetic overshooting convective events. Satellite measurements (Aura MLS) indicate that such events are uncommon (< 1 %).
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint