Abstract
The concentration of water vapour in the mesosphere and above cannot be easily measured because the quantity of water is very small due to the low atmospheric density. Now, however, we report the observation of resonant fluorescent radiation from water vapour in the 50–95 km region by the Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder (SAMS) on Nimbus 7 satellite. Our preliminary data suggest that the mixing ratio of water vapour decreases with increasing height over this region with a value of ∼1×10−6 v/v at 75–85 km.
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Drummond, J., Mutlow, C. Satellite measurements of H2O fluorescence in the mesosphere. Nature 294, 431–432 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/294431a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/294431a0
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