Radiative effects of changing atmospheric water vapour

G. Mark Doherty; Reginald E. Newell

doi:10.3402/tellusb.v36i3.14885

Radiative effects of changing atmospheric water vapour

Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology

Volume 36 (1984): Issue 3

By: G. Mark Doherty and Reginald E. Newell

Open Access

|Jan 1984

Abstract

We have used the radiative computation scheme of Dopplick to investigate the purely radiative effects resulting from variations in the total water vapour content in a clear atmospheric column. We consider a given water vapour profile uniformly scaled in the vertical by a factor over the range 0.2 to 2.4. For the case of varying water vapour but fixed temperature profile, we find that additional vapour produces greater cooling of the column as a whole while supplying energy to the surface and reducing the net energy flux out of the top of the column. For the same changes in vapour content, but atmospheric temperature varying so as to maintain constant relative humidity, we find even greater relative cooling of the atmospheric column as a whole. but less effective energy supply to the surface and an actual increase in the net flux upward at the top of the column.

Radiative heating rates were calculated for temperature and moisture profiles measured over the Arabian Sea during the 1979 summer MONEX and show radiative cooling of the lower layer and energy flux to the surface associated with the presence of water vapour in the lower layers of the atmosphere which may be important in the evolution of this vapour-rich surface layer preceding the monsoon.

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusb.v36i3.14885 | Journal eISSN: 1600-0889

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Language: English

Page range: 149 - 162

Submitted on: Jun 21, 1983

Accepted on: Jan 17, 1984

Published on: Jan 1, 1984

Published by: Stockholm University Press

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 1984 G. Mark Doherty, Reginald E. Newell, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 36 (1984): Issue 3