Microwave remote sensing of water vapor in the atmosphere

Abstract. Water vapor in the atmosphere plays a crucial role in climate and in atmospheric processes. Due to its long chemical lifetime it can be used as a tracer for investigations of dynamical processes in the middle atmosphere. Microwave radiometry is one of the few remote sensing methods which is capable of inferring Information on the water vapor content of the troposphere to the mesosphere, however with a different altitude resolution. Different microwave radiometers that can be operated from the ground and from an airborne platform have been built at the Institute of Applied Physics, University of Berne. The paper presents the method of microwave remote sensing and gives an overview of recently achieved results with regard to water vapor distribution as a function of altitude and Iatitude. First results of an imaging radiometer for the two dimensional distribution of liquid water is presented.