Aura Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer Research Articles

Relating tropical ocean clouds to moist processes using water vapor isotope measurements

Abstract. 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 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.

Vertical transport of surface fire emissions observed from space

We use optimal estimation to infer the vertical distribution of surface emissions lofted from boreal and tropical biomass burning during June–October (JJASO) 2006. We use satellite observations of CO, a tracer of incomplete combustion, at thermal infrared and microwave wavelengths from Aura Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) and Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS), respectively. TES and MLS together typically provide two to three pieces of information. We use a maximum a posteriori (MAP) methodology to estimate emitted CO mass in five vertical regions spanning the troposphere and lower stratosphere, equivalent to estimating surface emissions. Correlations between neighboring vertical regions, due to vigorous mixing induced by surface heating, reduce the inversion to the information content provided by the data. We use a total of 1785 TES profile measurements, of which 672 are colocated with MLS. We define an injection height based on MAP statistics. We find that 10%–20% of boreal and tropical fire emissions, depending on the region, reach the free and upper troposphere during JJASO 2006. Our injection height estimates during two key pyroconvective events, Siberia (July) and Indonesia (October), qualitatively agree with measurements of aerosol index and attenuated backscatter from Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and CALIPSO, respectively. Surface emissions inferred from our mass estimates agree with the Global Fire Emission Database biomass burning emission inventory to within ±10%. The small percentage of emissions injected above the boundary layer result in disproportionate changes in CO concentrations of more than 2–25 ppb and 15–160 ppb over boreal and tropical regions, respectively.