タイトル | Towards a Model Climatology of Relative Humidity in the Upper Troposphere for Estimation of Contrail and Contrail-Induced Cirrus |
本文(外部サイト) | http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20110008216 |
著者(英) | Douglass, A. R.; Stolarski, R. S.; Pawson, S.; Benson, C.; Ott, L.; Oman, L.; Selkirk, Henry B.; Manyin, M. |
著者所属(英) | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center |
発行日 | 2011-01-23 |
言語 | eng |
内容記述 | The formation of contrails and contrail cirrus is very sensitive to the relative humidity of the upper troposphere. To reduce uncertainty in an estimate of the radiative impact of aviation-induced cirrus, a model must therefore be able to reproduce the observed background moisture fields with reasonable and quantifiable fidelity. Here we present an upper tropospheric moisture climatology from a 26-year ensemble of simulations using the GEOS CCM. We compare this free-running model's moisture fields to those obtained from the MLS and AIRS satellite instruments, our most comprehensive observational databases for upper tropospheric water vapor. Published comparisons have shown a substantial wet bias in GEOS-5 assimilated fields with respect to MLS water vapor and ice water content. This tendency is clear as well in the GEOS CCM simulations. The GEOS-5 moist physics in the GEOS CCM uses a saturation adjustment that prevents supersaturation, which is unrealistic when compared to in situ moisture observations from MOZAIC aircraft and balloon sondes as we will show. Further, the large-scale satellite datasets also consistently underestimate super-saturation when compared to the in-situ observations. We place these results in the context of estimates of contrail and contrail cirrus frequency. |
NASA分類 | Meteorology and Climatology |
権利 | Copyright, Distribution as joint owner in the copyright |
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