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Detection of water vapor in the atmosphere of temperate rocky exoplanetswould be a major milestone on the path towards characterization of exoplanethabitability. Past modeling work has shown that cloud formation may prevent thedetection of water vapor on Earth-like planets with surface oceans using theJames Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Here we analyze the potential foratmospheric detection of H2O on a different class of targets: arid planets.Using transit spectrum simulations, we show that atmospheric H2O may be easierto be detected on arid planets with cold-trapped ice deposits on the surface,because such planets will not possess thick H2O cloud decks that limit thetransit depth of spectral features. However, additional factors such as bandoverlap with CO2 and other gases, extinction by mineral dust, overlap ofstellar and planetary H2O lines, and the ultimate noise floor obtainable byJWST still pose important challenges. For this reason, combination of space-and ground-based spectroscopic observations will be essential for reliabledetection of H2O on rocky exoplanets in the future.

Prospects for water vapor detection in the atmospheres of temperate and arid rocky exoplanets around M-dwarf stars