Articles | Volume 25, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5409-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5409-2025
Research article
 | 
02 Jun 2025
Research article |  | 02 Jun 2025

Water vapour isotopes over West Africa as observed from space: which processes control tropospheric H2O ∕ HDO pair distributions?

Christopher Johannes Diekmann, Matthias Schneider, Peter Knippertz, Tim Trent, Hartmut Boesch, Amelie Ninja Roehling, John Worden, Benjamin Ertl, Farahnaz Khosrawi, and Frank Hase

Related authors

Assessing the potential of free-tropospheric water vapour isotopologue satellite observations for improving the analyses of convective events
Matthias Schneider, Kinya Toride, Farahnaz Khosrawi, Frank Hase, Benjamin Ertl, Christopher J. Diekmann, and Kei Yoshimura
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 5243–5259, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5243-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5243-2024, 2024
Short summary
Isotopic measurements in water vapor, precipitation, and seawater during EUREC4A
Adriana Bailey, Franziska Aemisegger, Leonie Villiger, Sebastian A. Los, Gilles Reverdin, Estefanía Quiñones Meléndez, Claudia Acquistapace, Dariusz B. Baranowski, Tobias Böck, Sandrine Bony, Tobias Bordsdorff, Derek Coffman, Simon P. de Szoeke, Christopher J. Diekmann, Marina Dütsch, Benjamin Ertl, Joseph Galewsky, Dean Henze, Przemyslaw Makuch, David Noone, Patricia K. Quinn, Michael Rösch, Andreas Schneider, Matthias Schneider, Sabrina Speich, Bjorn Stevens, and Elizabeth J. Thompson
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 465–495, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-465-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-465-2023, 2023
Short summary
Impact of the assimilation of water vapour isotopologues on diabatic heating and precipitation in the tropics
Farahnaz Khosrawi, Kinya Toride, Kei Yoshimura, Christopher Diekmann, Benjamin Ertl, Frank Hase, and Matthias Schneider
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1408,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1408, 2022
Preprint withdrawn
Short summary
Quantifying CH4 emissions in hard coal mines from TROPOMI and IASI observations using the wind-assigned anomaly method
Qiansi Tu, Matthias Schneider, Frank Hase, Farahnaz Khosrawi, Benjamin Ertl, Jaroslaw Necki, Darko Dubravica, Christopher J. Diekmann, Thomas Blumenstock, and Dianjun Fang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9747–9765, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9747-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9747-2022, 2022
Short summary
Synergetic use of IASI profile and TROPOMI total-column level 2 methane retrieval products
Matthias Schneider, Benjamin Ertl, Qiansi Tu, Christopher J. Diekmann, Farahnaz Khosrawi, Amelie N. Röhling, Frank Hase, Darko Dubravica, Omaira E. García, Eliezer Sepúlveda, Tobias Borsdorff, Jochen Landgraf, Alba Lorente, André Butz, Huilin Chen, Rigel Kivi, Thomas Laemmel, Michel Ramonet, Cyril Crevoisier, Jérome Pernin, Martin Steinbacher, Frank Meinhardt, Kimberly Strong, Debra Wunch, Thorsten Warneke, Coleen Roehl, Paul O. Wennberg, Isamu Morino, Laura T. Iraci, Kei Shiomi, Nicholas M. Deutscher, David W. T. Griffith, Voltaire A. Velazco, and David F. Pollard
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 4339–4371, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-4339-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-4339-2022, 2022
Short summary

Related subject area

Subject: Gases | Research Activity: Remote Sensing | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Physics (physical properties and processes)
Evidence of successful methane mitigation in one of Europe's most important oil production region
Gerrit Kuhlmann, Foteini Stavropoulou, Stefan Schwietzke, Daniel Zavala-Araiza, Andrew Thorpe, Andreas Hueni, Lukas Emmenegger, Andreea Calcan, Thomas Röckmann, and Dominik Brunner
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 5371–5385, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5371-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5371-2025, 2025
Short summary
SO2 emissions derived from TROPOMI observations over India using a flux-divergence method with variable lifetimes
Yutao Chen, Ronald J. van der A, Jieying Ding, Henk Eskes, Jason E. Williams, Nicolas Theys, Athanasios Tsikerdekis, and Pieternel F. Levelt
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1851–1868, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1851-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1851-2025, 2025
Short summary
Evaluation of the WRF-Chem performance for the air pollutants over the United Arab Emirates
Yesobu Yarragunta, Diana Francis, Ricardo Fonseca, and Narendra Nelli
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1685–1709, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1685-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1685-2025, 2025
Short summary
Analysis of the long-range transport of the volcanic plume from the 2021 Tajogaite/Cumbre Vieja eruption to Europe using TROPOMI and ground-based measurements
Pascal Hedelt, Jens Reichardt, Felix Lauermann, Benjamin Weiß, Nicolas Theys, Alberto Redondas, Africa Barreto, Omaira Garcia, and Diego Loyola
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1253–1272, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1253-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1253-2025, 2025
Short summary
Development of a high-spatial-resolution annual emission inventory of greenhouse gases from open straw burning in Northeast China from 2001 to 2020
Zihan Song, Leiming Zhang, Chongguo Tian, Qiang Fu, Zhenxing Shen, Renjian Zhang, Dong Liu, and Song Cui
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13101–13113, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13101-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13101-2024, 2024
Short summary

Cited articles

Barthlott, S., Schneider, M., Hase, F., Blumenstock, T., Kiel, M., Dubravica, D., García, O. E., Sepúlveda, E., Mengistu Tsidu, G., Takele Kenea, S., Grutter, M., Plaza-Medina, E. F., Stremme, W., Strong, K., Weaver, D., Palm, M., Warneke, T., Notholt, J., Mahieu, E., Servais, C., Jones, N., Griffith, D. W. T., Smale, D., and Robinson, J.: Tropospheric water vapour isotopologue data (H216O, H218O, and HD16O) as obtained from NDACC/FTIR solar absorption spectra, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 9, 15–29, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-9-15-2017, 2017. a
Berntell, E., Zhang, Q., Chafik, L., and Körnich, H.: Representation of Multidecadal Sahel Rainfall Variability in 20th Century Reanalyses, Sci. Rep., 8, 10937, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-29217-9, 2018. a
Bielli, S., Douville, H., and Pohl, B.: Understanding the West African monsoon variability and its remote effects: An illustration of the grid point nudging methodology, Clim. Dynam., 35, 159–174, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-009-0667-8, 2010. a
Bolot, M., Legras, B., and Moyer, E. J.: Modelling and interpreting the isotopic composition of water vapour in convective updrafts, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 7903–7935, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-7903-2013, 2013. a
Bowman, K. W.: TROPESS AIRS-Aqua L2 Deuterated Water Vapor for Reanalysis Stream, Summary Product V1, Greenbelt, MD, USA, Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) [data set], https://doi.org/10.5067/55XVECXA26EK (last access: 28 May 2023), 2023. a
Download
Short summary
The West African Monsoon is the main source of rainfall over West Africa, and understanding the development of the monsoon remains challenging due to complex interactions of atmospheric processes. We make use of new satellite datasets of isotopes in tropospheric water vapour to characterize processes controlling the monsoon convection. We find that comparing different water vapour isotopes reveals effects of rain–vapour interactions and air mass transport.
Share
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint