The vertical structure and spatial variability of lower-tropospheric water vapor and clouds in the trades

Naumann, Ann Kristin; Kiemle, Christoph

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-6129-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-6129-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Tropospheric profiling (ISTP11) (AMT/ACP inter-journal SI)

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-6129-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 10

Research article

|

26 May 2020

Research article |

| 26 May 2020

The vertical structure and spatial variability of lower-tropospheric water vapor and clouds in the trades

Ann Kristin Naumann and Christoph Kiemle

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Final revised paper (published on 26 May 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 20 Dec 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #1, 22 Jan 2020
RC2: 'review', Anonymous Referee #3, 19 Feb 2020
AC1: 'Reply to reviewers', Ann Kristin Naumann, 07 Apr 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Ann Kristin Naumann on behalf of the Authors (07 Apr 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (17 Apr 2020) by Andreas Richter

AR by Ann Kristin Naumann on behalf of the Authors (20 Apr 2020) Manuscript

Short summary

The interaction of water vapor and cloudiness poses challenges for weather and climate models. In this study we compare airborne lidar measurements from two field campaigns in the tropical Atlantic with high-resolution simulations. We find that at kilometer-scale grid spacing, the simulations show good skill in reproducing the water vapor distribution in the trades but struggle to capture the transition from cloud-free to low cloud fraction with increasing moisture.