Diurnal Variability of Lower and Middle Atmospheric Water Vapour Over The Asian Summer Monsoon Region: First Results From COSMIC-1 and TIMED-SABER Measurements

Abstract

First observations on the vertical structure of diurnal variability of tropospheric water vapour in the lower and middle atmosphere using 13 years of COSMIC and 18 years of SABER observations are presented in this paper. The most significant and new observation is that the middle stratospheric water vapour (SWV) enhancement is observed between 9-18 LT, whereas it is between 6-15 LT near tropopause in all the seasons. The diurnal amplitude of water vapour near tropopause is between 0.3-0.4 ppmv. Bimodal peaks are found in the diurnal amplitude of SWV, maximizing between 25-30 km (~0.4 ppmv) and 45-50 km (~0.6 ppmv). The analysis reveals that the diurnal variability in the lower SWV is controlled by the tropical tropopause temperature, whereas the middle and upper SWV is controlled by methane oxidation. The results are presented and discussed in the light of present understanding.