First Sight of the Upper Tropospheric Humidity Variability during CINDY-DYNAMO : Exploitation of the SAPHIR Measurements

Abstract : The SAPHIR microwave radiometer onboard the Megha-Tropiques platform offers a unique insight of the tropospheric humidity through its 6 channels located in the 183.31 GHz water vapor absorption band. The special configuration of these channels gives the possibility to better constraint the retrieval of the relative humidity profile. More specifically, the 3 central channels (±0.2GHz, ±1.1GHz, ±2.8GHz) can be quite straitforwardly interpreted in terms of 3 layer-averaged upper tropospheric humidity (UTHs). The present work focuses on the study of theses UTHs, with a particular emphasis on the CINDY-DYNAMO period.