Mesospheric H2O Concentrations Retrieved from SABER/TIMED Measurements

The SABER instrument on board the TIMED Satellite is a limb scanning infrared radiometer designed to measure temperature and minor constituent vertical profiles and energetics parameters in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT). The H2O concentrations are retrieved from 6.3 micron band radiances. The populations of H2O(v2) vibrational levels are in non-Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium (non-LTE) above approximately 55 km altitude and the interpretation of 6.3 micron radiance requires utilizing non-LTE H2O model that includes various energy exchange processes in the system of H2O vibrational levels coupled with O2, N2, and CO2 vibrational levels. We incorporated these processes including kinetics of O2/O3 photolysis products to our research non-LTE H2O model and applied it for the development and optimization of SABER operational model. The latter has been validated using simultaneous SCISAT1/ACE occultation measurements. This helped us to estimate CO2(020)-O2(X,v=I), O2(X,v=I)- H2O(010), and O2(X,v=1) O rates at mesopause temperatures that is critical for an adequate interpretation of non-LTE H2O radiances in the MLT. The first distributions of seasonal and meridional H2O concentrations retrieved from SABER 6.3 micron radiances applying an updated non-LTE H2O model are demonstrated and discussed.