Relative humidity over ice as a key variable for Northern Hemisphere midlatitude tropopause inversion layers

Köhler, Daniel; Reutter, Philipp; Spichtinger, Peter

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10055-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 17

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10055-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10055-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 17

Research article

|

12 Sep 2024

Research article |

| 12 Sep 2024

Relative humidity over ice as a key variable for Northern Hemisphere midlatitude tropopause inversion layers

Daniel Köhler, Philipp Reutter, and Peter Spichtinger

Data sets

Radiosonde data DWD https://opendata.dwd.de/climate_environment/CDC/observations_germany/radiosondes/high_res olution/historical/

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

Model code and software

Code for "The extratropical tropopause inversion layer and its correlation with relative humidity" D. Köhler https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10604349

Short summary

In this work, the influence of humidity on the properties of the tropopause is studied. The tropopause is the interface between the troposphere and the stratosphere and represents a barrier for the transport of air masses between the troposphere and the stratosphere. We consider not only the tropopause itself, but also a layer around it called the tropopause inversion layer (TIL). It is shown that the moister the underlying atmosphere is, the more this layer acts as a barrier.