Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
www.atmos-chem-phys.net
1680-7316
1680-7324
8
3
2008
10.5194/acp-8-491-2008
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/491/2008/
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/491/2008/acp-8-491-2008.html
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/491/2008/acp-8-491-2008.pdf
491
504
2008-02-06
Analysis of global water vapour trends from satellite measurements in the visible spectral range
S. Mieruch
sebastian.mieruch@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de
S. Noël
H. Bovensmann
J. P. Burrows
Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, FB 1, P. O. Box 330440, 28334 Bremen, Germany
Global water vapour total column amounts have been retrieved from
spectral data provided by the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment
(GOME) flying on ERS-2, which was launched in April 1995, and the
SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY
(SCIAMACHY) onboard ENVISAT launched in March 2002. For this purpose
the Air Mass Corrected Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy
(AMC-DOAS) approach has been used. The combination of the data from
both instruments provides us with a long-term global data set spanning
more than 11 years with the potential of extension up to 2020 by
GOME-2 data on MetOp.
<br><br>
Using linear and non-linear methods from time series analysis and
standard statistics the trends of H<sub>2</sub>O columns and their errors have
been calculated. In this study, factors affecting the trend such as
the length of the time series, the magnitude of the variability of the
noise, and the autocorrelation of the noise are investigated. Special
emphasis has been placed on the calculation of the statistical
significance of the observed trends, which reveal significant local
changes from −5% per year to +5% per year. These significant
trends are distributed over the whole globe. Increasing
trends have been calculated for Greenland, East Europe, Siberia and
Oceania, whereas decreasing trends have been observed for
the northwest USA, Central America, Amazonia, Central Africa and the
Arabian Peninsular.
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