Mesospheric Water Vapor in 2022
Abstract
The eruption of the Hunga Tonga undersea volcano in January 2022 injected water vapor to altitudes as high as 53 km, but also an unprecedented and much larger amount of water vapor into the stratosphere. Several months after the eruption, measurements from the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and from three ground‐based Water Vapor Millimeter Wave Spectrometer instruments began to measure record‐high amounts of water vapor in the mesosphere over a wide range of latitudes. While there are indications that some of this mesospheric increase in water vapor was probably caused by the Hunga Tonga eruption, variations in water vapor mixing ratios also depend on dynamical factors. The phase of the QBO in 2015 was similar to that in 2022, and we make use of this similarity in order to better understand what role dynamics played in establishing the unusually large 2022 water vapor mixing ratios, both in the upper and lower mesosphere.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Sep 22, 2023
- Source ID
- 10.1029/2023jd039196
Entities
People
- A. Lambert
- Douglas Allen
- Gerald E. Nedoluha
- Helen Neal
- Ian Boyd
- N. J. Livesey
- R. Michael Gomez
Organizations
- California Institute of Technology
- NASA Earth Science
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Naval Research Laboratory