Upper tropospheric moisture variation observed with ultraspectralsounders and validation

Infrared ultraspectral radiances from aircraft and space-based observations contain wealth information about the thermodynamic properties (i.e., temperature and moisture profiles and cloud microphysics properties) in the troposphere. A state-of-art inversion algorithm has been developed for airborne and spaceborne instruments (i.e., NAST-I and AIRS) to accurately retrieve these thermodynamic properties. This is to support the development of future satellite temperature and moisture sounders such as the IASI on the MetOp satellite, the CrIS on the NPP and the following NPOESS series of satellites, as well as the GIFTS and the HES designed to fly on geostationary satellites. The accuracy of upper tropospheric water vapour has been investigated with the retrievals, radiosondes, and ground-based Raman Lidar measurements. The relatively accurate moisture profiles in the upper troposphere can be obtained from space-based ultraspectral sounders.