Measurements Of Humidity in the Atmosphere and Validation Experiments (MOHAVE) 2009: Campaign Review

The MOHAVE 2009 campaign took place at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Table Mountain Facility (California) in October 2009. The campaign hosted a large number of instruments and techniques which allowed intensive measurements of water vapor mixing ratio between the ground and the mesopause, as well as Total Precipitable Water (TPW). Six ground-based lidars from three different Research groups provided over 350 hours of water vapor, ozone, and temperature measurements. Over 50 balloons were launched with RS92 PTU sondes onboard. Twenty of them included Frost-point Hygrometers (FPH), allowing thorough validation of the lidar measurements. The water vapor profiles obtained from the JPL lidar showed no systematic bias with the FPH up to 20 km. One-hour time integration allowed the JPL profiles to reach 14-15 km, and 50-hour averages allowed the profiles to reach 20 km with approximate 20% precision. Outstanding water vapor-ozone correlations were observed, and revealed a major stratospheric intrusion on October 20. Two GPS receivers, two microwave radiometers, and two Fourier Transform Spectrometers provided near-continuous measurements of TPW. Excellent agreement between all instruments was found, suggesting that these techniques can become important complements to the radiosonde for routine lidar calibration