Trend and Variability of the Atmospheric Water Vapor: A Mean Sea Level Issue

Abstract

he wet tropospheric path delay is presently the main source of error in the estimation of the mean sea level by satellite altimetry. This correction on altimetric measurements, provided by a dedicated radiometer aboard the satellite, directly depends on the atmospheric water vapor content. Nowadays, water vapor products from microwave radiometers are rather consistent but important discrepancies remain. Understanding these differences can help improve the retrieval of water vapor and reduce at the same time the error on the mean sea level.Three radiometers are compared: the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for Earth Observing System (AMSR-E), Jason-1 microwave radiometer (JMR), and Envisat microwave radiometer (MWR). Water vapor products are analyzed both in terms of spatial and temporal distribution over the period 2004?10, using AMSR-E as a reference. The Interim ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) data are also included in the study as an additional point of comparison. Overall, the study confirms the general good agreement between the radiometers: similar patterns are observed for the spatial distribution of water vapor and the correlation of the times series is better than 0.90. However, regional discrepancies are observed and a quantitative agreement on the trend is not obtained. Regional discrepancies are driven by the annual cycle. The JMR product shows discrepancies are highly dependent on water vapor, which might be related to calibration issues. Furthermore, triple collocation analysis suggests a possible drift of JMR. MWR discrepancies are located in coastal regions and follow a seasonal dynamic with stronger differences in summer. It may result from processing of the brightness temperatures.