Water vapor measurements by mobile Raman lidar over the Mediterranean Sea in the framework of HyMeX: application to multi-platform validation of moisture profiles

Abstract : The Water Aerosol Lidar (WALI) system, deployed for 14 weeks during 2012 & 2013 on the island of Menorca, provided the Hydrological cycle in the Mediterranean eXperiment (HyMeX) with an opportunity to perform a multi-platform comparison on moisture retrievals at the timescales relevant for extreme precipitation events in the West Mediterranean basin. After calibration, the WALI lidar yields nighttime profiles of water vapor with ~7% accuracy from the ground up to 7 km, and daytime coverage of the lower layers, alongside common aerosol retrievals. It is used to characterize the water vapor profile product given by the IASI instrument on-board MetOp-B, and the fields simulated by the Météo-France AROME-WMED model and the open-source WRF model. IASI is found to be reliable above 1 km altitude, and the two models obtain similar high scores in the middle troposphere; WRF beneficiates from a more accurate modelling of the planetary boundary layer.