Clouds and Water Vapor from Aqua AIRS and Aura MLS Satellite Observations

New measurements of upper tropospheric clouds and water vapor from Aura MLS are combined with the tropospheric measurements from Aqua AIRS to analyze the consistency in the representation of clouds and water vapor over the globe, their climatology, and their seasonal and interannual variations. This assessment will provide useful information on the quality and range of applicability of the MLS and AIRS measurements, and will lead to a more comprehensive characterization of cloud related processes from the satellite measurements. Comparisons between the MLS and AIRS measurements to global atmospheric analyses and climate models will also be presented to highlight the potential application of these data to model evaluation and development.