Abrupt excursions in water vapor isotopic variability at the Pointe Benedicte observatory on Amsterdam Island

Landais, Amaelle; Agosta, Cécile; Vimeux, Françoise; Magand, Olivier; Solis, Cyrielle; Cauquoin, Alexandre; Dutrievoz, Niels; Risi, Camille; Leroy-Dos Santos, Christophe; Fourré, Elise; Cattani, Olivier; Jossoud, Olivier; Minster, Bénédicte; Prié, Frédéric; Casado, Mathieu; Dommergue, Aurélien; Bertrand, Yann; Werner, Martin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4611-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4611-2024

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4611-2024

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

Articles | Volume 24, issue 8

Research article

|

18 Apr 2024

Research article |

| 18 Apr 2024

Abrupt excursions in water vapor isotopic variability at the Pointe Benedicte observatory on Amsterdam Island

Amaelle Landais, Cécile Agosta, Françoise Vimeux, Olivier Magand, Cyrielle Solis, Alexandre Cauquoin, Niels Dutrievoz, Camille Risi, Christophe Leroy-Dos Santos, Elise Fourré, Olivier Cattani, Olivier Jossoud, Bénédicte Minster, Frédéric Prié, Mathieu Casado, Aurélien Dommergue, Yann Bertrand, and Martin Werner

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4611-2024-supplement

Data sets

Continuous measurements of atmospheric mercury at Amsterdam Island (L2) H. Angot et al. https://doi.org/10.25326/168

Modeling abrupt excursions in water vapor isotopic variability during cold fronts at the Pointe Benedicte observatory in Amsterdam Island/Observation dataset, Version v1 A. Landais et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8164391

Modeling abrupt excursions in water vapor isotopic variability during cold fronts at the Pointe Benedicte observatory in Amsterdam Island/Model dataset, Version 0.1 A. Cauquoin et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8160596

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Short summary

We have monitored water vapor isotopes since January 2020 on Amsterdam Island in the Indian Ocean. We show 11 periods associated with abrupt negative excursions of water vapor δ¹⁸Ο. Six of these events show a decrease in gaseous elemental mercury, suggesting subsidence of air from a higher altitude. Accurately representing the water isotopic signal during these cold fronts is a real challenge for the atmospheric components of Earth system models equipped with water isotopes.