Retrieval of column-integrated water vapour from MODIS and analysis of its monthly and seasonal variability over several typical cities in China

Column-integrated water vapour also called Precipitable Water Vapour (PWV), is one of the main parameters influencing the global climate change. Due to its high spatial and temporal variability PWV has been found to be a good tracer of atmospheric motions. Retrieving PWV from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data has the merits of high spatial resolution and low cost. In this paper, an algorithm for retrieving PWV using several MODIS near-IR channels data is first presented. Six typical cities in China with different climate are selected for study. These are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Lanzhou. The variations of PWV in recent13 years (2001-2013) over six cities have been analyzed. The study brings out an increasing trend of annual average of water vapour over these cities in recent 13 years. The results also indicate that PWV reaches the highest value in summer, decreases in autumn, further decrease in spring, and is lowest in winter. PWV in summer over the six cities have been increasing in recent 13 years, but PWV in autumn and winter have been decreasing over inland cities, such as Wuhan and Beijing. Possible reasons for such observed trends are given in this paper.