High-precision isotope measurements of H216O, H217O, H218O, and the Δ17O-anomaly of water vapor in the southern lowermost stratosphere

Abstract

We report the first high-precision measurements of δ18O and Δ17O at high southern latitudes that can resolve changes in the isotopic composition of water vapor in the lowermost stratosphere and upper troposphere. A strong increase of δ 18O with decreasing mixing ratio above the tropopause is evident in the data. Since also the water vapor mixing ratio decreases above the tropopause, the effect seen in the isotope data can be explained by mixing of moist air from the tropopause with dry stratospheric air. However, the source of this dry stratospheric air is not known; both fast transport from the extratropical tropopause or mixing with air from the dehydrated polar vortex are likely. The magnitude of the Δ17O-anomaly (departure from mass-dependent fractionation (MDF)) was below 2 per mil for each datapoint, and a zero anomaly in lower level stratospheric water vapor is possible. Various transport histories for the stratospheric data are discussed based on the mixing ratio and isotope data. © 2005 Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.