Data · dataset · 2026
Variability of water vapor in the tropical middle atmosphere observed from satellites and interpreted using SD-WACCM simulations
Listed in National Center for Atmospheric Research
Water vapor in the middle atmosphere plays an essential role in global warming, ozone depletion, and the formation of polar stratospheric and mesospheric clouds.
Description
We show that tropical middle atmospheric water vapor simulated with the specified-dynamics version of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (SD-WACCM) is consistent with changes observed in a merged satellite data set, which encompasses the period 1993-2020.
Consistent with previous work, we find no significant trend in the stratosphere in either the observations or the simulation; in the mesosphere, we find a long-term trend of 0.1 ppmv per decade, but only in the observations. We also analyze an SD-WACCM simulation for the longer period 1980-2019 to quantify the contribution of various factors to the decadal variation of middle atmospheric water vapor. Over 1980-1995, the simulated water vapor in the upper stratosphere and mesosphere, averaged zonally and over +/- 30 degrees latitude, increases by 0.30 ppmv per decade due to increasing methane emissions.
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After 1995, a significant abrupt decrease of water vapor of 0.37 ppmv per decade and then a gradual increase of 0.33 ppmv per decade result from changes in stratospheric cold point temperature. The cold-point temperature is strongly influenced by the strength of the Brewer-Dobson circulation. The acceleration of the Brewer-Dobson circulation before about 2003 leads to a cooler tropical tropopause and a decrease of water vapor, and the deceleration thereafter leads to corresponding warming of the tropopause and an increase in water vapor.
Links
Get the data
- Publisher page n2t.org/ark:/85065/d78d011m ↗
documentation · download · from data ucar edu
Where it is published
- data.ucar.edu /dataset/variability-of-water-vapor-in-the-tropical-middle-atmo… ↗
National Center for Atmospheric Research dataset page
landing page · from data ucar edu
Catalogue records · 1
- CKAN API data.ucar.edu/api/3/action/package_show?id=141a713d-b396-4c83-ad6f-677f69d25… ↗
metadata API · from data ucar edu
Topics
- From keywords
- Earth & Environmental Science · Ocean & Atmospheric Science
- Inferred from text
- Climate model simulation 65% · Simulation 75% · Tropospheric and stratospheric physics 76%
Provenance · 1 source records, 10 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Center for Atmospheric Research | 141a713d-b396-4c83-ad6f-677f69d254f4 | 12 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| concepts[field].anzsrc:field:370109 | enrichment · data ucar edu | taxonomy-embedding@1.1.0 | title+keywords+description (76%) |
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:ocean-atmospheric | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[method].local:method:climate-model | enrichment · data ucar edu | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (65%) |
| concepts[method].local:method:simulation | enrichment · data ucar edu | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (75%) |
| created_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /notes |
| publication_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /title |
| updated_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 |