ACPD Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ACPD 1680-7375 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acpd-10-17407-2010 Relating tropical ocean clouds to moist processes using water vapor isotope measurements Lee J. 1 Worden J. 1 Noone D. 2 Bowman K. 1 Eldering A. 1 LeGrande A. 3 Li J.-L. F. 1 Schmidt G. 3 Sodemann H. 4 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Kjeller, Norway 20 07 2010 10 7 17407 17434 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/17407/2010/acpd-10-17407-2010.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/17407/2010/acpd-10-17407-2010.pdf

We examine the co-variations of tropospheric water vapor, its isotopic composition and cloud types and relate these distributions to tropospheric mixing and distillation models using satellite observations from the Aura Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) over the summertime tropical ocean. Interpretation of these process distributions must take into account the sensitivity of the TES isotope and water vapor measurements to variations in cloud, water, and temperature amount. Consequently, comparisons are made between cloud-types based on the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISSCP) classification; these are clear sky, non-precipitating (e.g., cumulus), boundary layer (e.g., stratocumulus), and precipitating clouds (e.g. regions of deep convection). In general, we find that the free tropospheric vapor over tropical oceans does not strictly follow a Rayleigh model in which air parcels become more dry and isotopically depleted through condensation. Instead, mixing processes related to convection as well as subsidence, and re-evaporation of rainfall associated with organized deep convection all play significant roles in controlling the water vapor distribution. The relative role of these moisture processes are examined for different tropical oceanic regions.

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