A case study on the impact of severe convective storms on the water vapor mixing ratio in the lower mid-latitude stratosphere observed in 2019 over Europe

Khordakova, Dina; Rolf, Christian; Grooß, Jens-Uwe; Müller, Rolf; Konopka, Paul; Wieser, Andreas; Krämer, Martina; Riese, Martin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1059-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1059-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1059-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 2

Research article

|

21 Jan 2022

Research article |

| 21 Jan 2022

A case study on the impact of severe convective storms on the water vapor mixing ratio in the lower mid-latitude stratosphere observed in 2019 over Europe

Dina Khordakova, Christian Rolf, Jens-Uwe Grooß, Rolf Müller, Paul Konopka, Andreas Wieser, Martina Krämer, and Martin Riese

Data sets

Tereno: terrestial environmental Obervatories Forschungszentrum Jülich IBG-3 http://www.tereno.net/geonetwork

MLS/Aura Level 2 Water Vapor (H2O) Mixing Ratio V004 A. Lambert, W. Read, and N. Livesey https://doi.org/10.5067/Aura/MLS/DATA2009

MLS/Aura Level 2 Ozone (O3) Mixing Ratio V004 M. Schwartz, L. Froidevaux, N. Livesey, and W. Read https://doi.org/10.5067/Aura/MLS/DATA2017

MLS/Aura Level 2 Carbon Monoxide (CO) Mixing Ratio V004 M. Schwartz, H. Pumphrey, N. Livesey, and W. Read https://doi.org/10.5067/Aura/MLS/DATA2005

ERA5: Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/home

Short summary

Extreme storms transport humidity from the troposphere to the stratosphere. Here it has a strong impact on the climate. With ongoing global warming, we expect more storms and, hence, an enhancement of this effect. A case study was performed in order to measure the impact of the direct injection of water vapor into the lower stratosphere. The measurements displayed a significant transport of water vapor into the lower stratosphere, and this was supported by satellite and reanalysis data.