Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions
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10.5194/acpd-7-11761-2007
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/11761/2007/
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/11761/2007/acpd-7-11761-2007.html
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/11761/2007/acpd-7-11761-2007.pdf
11761
11796
2007-08-10
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 contents 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
of water vapour columns distributed over the whole globe.
<br><br>
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