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Satellite observation of dehydration in the Arctic Polar stratosphere
Author(s) -
Pan L. L.,
Randel W. J.,
Nakajima H.,
Massie S. T.,
Kanzawa H.,
Sasano Y.,
Yokota T.,
Sugita T.,
Hayashida S.,
Oshchepkov S.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2001gl014147
Subject(s) - stratosphere , water vapor , atmospheric sciences , arctic , polar , environmental science , the arctic , ice cloud , dehydration , climatology , satellite , meteorology , geology , oceanography , chemistry , physics , biochemistry , astronomy
We report the first space‐borne observation of dehydration in the Arctic polar stratosphere. In January 1997, the Improved Limb Atmospheric Spectrometer (ILAS) observed up to ∼3 ppmv water vapor reduction during ice cloud formation and ∼2 ppmv permanent removal of water vapor, mostly at altitudes between 23 and 26 km. In some cases, the dehydrated air was downwind from mountain wave induced Polar Stratospheric Cloud (PSC) events. Furthermore, simultaneous observations of HNO 3 and H 2 O show that the gas phase reduction of HNO 3 in the Arctic (January 1997) was much smaller than that observed in the Antarctic (June 1997) when a similar level of water vapor reduction occurred.