Spatial variability of tropospheric water vapor measured by airborne lidar

Abstract

Airborne water vapor differential absorption lidar measurements provide two-dimensional vertical cross sections of humidity and its variability along the aircraft flight track with high spatial resolution (0.2 km vertical, 2 km horizontal). The scaling exponents of horizontal structure functions take different values, depending on whether or not the observations took place in an air mass where convective clouds were present. Details on this research, as well as lidar measurements of other sources of humidity variability such as turbulence in the boundary layer and intrusions of stratospheric air into the troposphere will be presented.