Quantifying free tropospheric moisture sources over the western tropical Atlantic with numerical water tracers and isotopes

Abstract

Tropical free-tropospheric humidity plays a crucial role for the Earth's radiative balance and climate sensitivity. In addition to atmospheric humidity, stable water isotopes can provide important information about the hydrological cycle. We use the isotope- and water tagging-enabled version of the COSMO_iso model to determine isotopic fingerprints of diagnosed moisture pathways over the western tropical Atlantic (WTA). A convection-permitting, high-resolution (5 km) nudged simulation is performed for January–February 2020. During this period, the target region is characterized by alternating large-scale circulation regimes with different humidity and isotope signatures. Moist conditions in the middle troposphere (300–650 hPa) are associated with moisture transport from the south, east, southeast, as well as evaporation from the North Atlantic, while dry conditions correspond to extratropical transport from the north and west. To predict the contribution of different moisture sources, we used a statistical model based on the local specific humidity and temperature as predictors and obtained an R-squared (R²) of 0.52. Adding water isotopes improved the prediction (R² = 0.73), showing that isotopes provide unique information on moisture sources and transport patterns beyond conventional local observations.