Simultaneous measurements of water vapor profiles from airborne MIR and LASE

A NASA ER-2 aircraft flight with both Millimeter-wave Imaging radiometer (MIR) and Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE) was made over ocean areas in the eastern United States on September 25, 1995. The water vapor profiles derived from both instruments under both clear and cloudy conditions are compared. It is shown that good agreement is found between the MIR-derived and the LASE-measured water vapor profiles over the areas of clear-sky conditions. In the cloudy areas, the MIR-retrieved values at the altitudes of the cloud layers and below are generally higher than those measured by the LASE.