RESEARCH ON THE UPPER TROPOSPHERE WATER VAPOR OVER EAST ASIA WITH THE GMS-5

Water vapor is a key factor of the climate change. The water vapor in upper troposphere is more important to global radiative balance. Satellite remote sensing provides a useful way to retrieve the upper troposphere water vapor at the low temperature. One of the most widely used channels to retrieval the water vapor is the 6.7 μm channel.Soden (1993) suggested a scheme by using this channel to obtain upper troposphere relative humidity. In this paper, we apply this method to the water vapor channel data provided by the GMS-5, and get the distribution of the clear sky upper troposphere water vapor over East Asia. A month-average distribution is confirming by the relative humidity distribution given by the NCEP data. Based on the GMS-5 data of 1996-2002, we get an average distribution of the upper troposphere water vapor over East Asia. This product is an aid ant data set for the research on water cycle and the responding of the atmospheric water vapor to climate change.