Search NASA⌕ Search

Engineering topics

Payne, Vivienne

Publications and source records attributed to Payne, Vivienne.

At least 19 records

Amazonian terrestrial water balance inferred from satellite-observed water vapor isotopes

Atmospheric humidity and soil moisture in the Amazon forest are tightly coupled to the region’s water balance, or the difference between two moisture fluxes, evapotranspiration minus precipitation (ET-P). However, large and poorly characterized uncertainties in both fluxes, and in their difference, make it challenging to evaluate spatiotemporal variations of water balance and its dependence on ET or P. Here, we show that satellite observations of the HDO/H 2 O ratio of water vapor are sensitive to spatiotemporal variations of ET-P over the Amazon. When calibrated by basin-scale and mass-balance estimates of ET-P derived from terrestrial water storage and river discharge measurements, the isotopic data demonstrate that rainfall controls wet Amazon water balance variability, but ET becomes important in regulating water balance and its variability in the dry Amazon. Changes in the drivers of ET, such as above ground biomass, could therefore have a larger impact on soil moisture and humidity in the dry (southern and eastern) Amazon relative to the wet Amazon.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Climate-Relevant Gas Absorption Properties from AWARE and Other ARM Spectral Measurements (Final Report)

The objective of this project has been to use measurements from the Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) deployed at ARM sites to improve our knowledge of uncertain infrared spectroscopic parameters of importance to climate, remote sensing, and data assimilation. A primary focus has been the water vapor continuum in the infrared atmospheric window. Radiation codes used to predict climate and weather base their representation of the water vapor continuum in this window on the MT_CKD model, but in this spectral region the MT_CKD water vapor continuum absorption coefficients were derived almost two decades ago by an analysis of AERI measurements for conditions with a limited range of precipitable water vapor (PWV) and temperature values, leading to uncertainty in the derived coefficients. This project has included a new, comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the water vapor continuum in the atmospheric window -- the self continuum, the foreign continuum, and the self continuum temperature dependence, all resolved spectrally. Having a wide range of PWV amounts and temperatures from deployments of the ARM Mobile Facility for GoAmazon as well as the more than a decade of AERI measurements at SGP has provided an appropriate foundation for such a comprehensive analysis.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗