EGU25-15396, updated on 15 Mar 2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15396
EGU General Assembly 2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Poster | Tuesday, 29 Apr, 08:30–10:15 (CEST), Display time Tuesday, 29 Apr, 08:30–12:30
 
Hall X5, X5.71
Can Reanalysis Datasets Show Unprecedented Stratospheric Water Vapor After the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai Eruption?
Yang Li1, Xin Zhou1, Wenhui Zhang1, Chaochao Gao2, Quanliang Chen1, and Wuhu Feng3,4
Yang Li et al.
  • 1School of Atmospheric Sciences, Chengdu University of Information Technology, Chengdu, China (liyang0711@cuit.edu.cn)
  • 2College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China (gaocc@zju.edu.cn)
  • 3School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK (w.feng@ncas.ac.uk)
  • 4National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK (w.feng@ncas.ac.uk)

The 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai (HTHH) volcanic eruption injected around 150 Tg water vapor into the stratosphere. Using Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) water vapor measurement, this study provides the first evaluation of the HTHH-induced stratospheric water vapor (SWV) products revealed by the ERA5, MERRA2 and M2-SCREAM reanalyses. Results show that ERA5 and MERRA2 underestimate the SWV mass compared to MLS observations, while M2-SCREAM shows good consistency not only in the magnitude but also in the transport and depletion details. M2-SCREAM also perform well in the estimation of the long-term trend of SWV mass, while ERA5 and MERRA2 both overestimate the trend, suggesting the potential value of M2-SCREAM in estimating the long-term climatic influence of HTHH eruption. The extent to which the assimilation of SWV contributes to the significant discrepancies observed between M2-SCREAM and ERA5 as well as MERRA2 offers valuable insights for enhancing the numerical simulation of reanalyses.

How to cite: Li, Y., Zhou, X., Zhang, W., Gao, C., Chen, Q., and Feng, W.: Can Reanalysis Datasets Show Unprecedented Stratospheric Water Vapor After the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai Eruption?, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15396, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15396, 2025.