The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) consists of a suite of instruments on board the Aqua spacecraft which retrieve atmospheric parameters over the globe at radiosonde quality on a daily basis in non-precipitating fields of view with less than 80% cloud cover.

Quantitative global measurements of water vapor have been available since the 1950's, however the vertical resolution of these measurements was very coarse and left huge gaps in our understanding. AIRS provides precipitable water vapor profiles with spatial resolution at nadir of 45 km and a vertical resolution in the troposphere of 2 km.

We have developed global gridded products from AIRS standard products including water vapor to 100 mb. These products are reported on daily, 8-day and monthly temporal scales at 1x1 degree spatial resolution. In addition, water vapor is reported at 12 vertical levels from the surface to 100 mb. We will present an analysis of the distribution and variability of the global distribution of AIRS water vapor profiles over the ocean using these data.

We will also present regional case studies at higher time and spatial resolution using the geolocated Level 2 retrievals.