Study tracks water vapor in sub-tropics

BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 22 (UPI) -- NASA scientists, satellites and ground-based instruments are cooperating in a monthlong U.S. experiment to track water vapor in the Earth's subtropics.

The University of Colorado-Boulder experiment on Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano is an effort to track Earth's most abundant and arguably most important heat-trapping gas: water vapor.

"There's no question CO2 is driving changes in our planet's climate but a lot of the changes we are seeing are due to changes in the water cycle and to the amount of water vapor in the air," said climate scientist David Noone from the university's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

Noone and Assistant Professor Joe Galewsky of the University of New Mexico are leading the project. They say their experiments at Mauna Loa will provide important clues for understanding how changes in the water cycle influence changes in atmospheric circulation and global temperatures.

Noone and graduate student Derek Brown, along with Galewsky's team, will work to identify the origins of both moist and dry air masses converging on Hawaii by measuring the chemical "tags" created by water vapor's isotopes.

The researchers will be in the field through Nov. 6.