MUlti-platform remote Sensing of Isotopologues for investigating the Cycle of Atmospheric water

Atmospheric water is an enormously crucial trace gas. It is responsible for ~70 % of the natural greenhouse effect (Schmidt et al., JGR, 2010) and carries huge amounts of latent heat. The isotopic composition of water vapor is an elegant tracer for a better understanding and quantification of the extremely complex and variable hydrological cycle in Earth’s atmosphere (evaporation, cloud condensation, rainout, re-evaporation, snow), which in turn is a prerequisite to improve climate modeling and predictions. Within the last years progress was made in measuring HDO and H₂¹⁶O concentrations by infrared remote sensing instruments, which provide the opportunity to gather long-term (ground-based in the framework of NDACC)  and area-wide (satellite based sensor IASI) observations.

MUSICA (MUlti-platform remote Sensing of Isotopologues for investigating the Cycle of Atmospheric water) aims to generate a tropospheric dataset of HDO/H₂¹⁶O based on remote sensing measurements from satellite/ground and to validate the remote sensing measurements by in situ-components.