“A global database of water vapor isotopes measured with high temporal resolution infrared laser spectroscopy”, a new paper published in Scientific Data, a Nature Research journal.

The isotopic composition of water vapour provides integrated perspectives on the hydrological histories of air masses and has been widely used for tracing physical processes in hydrological and climatic studies. Over the last two decades, the infrared laser spectroscopy technique has been successfully used to measure the isotopic composition of water vapour near the Earth’s surface.

In this context, this paper presents for the first time the Stable Water Vapor Isotope Database (SWVID), which assembles a global database of high temporal resolution stable water vapour isotope ratios (δ18O and δD) observed using this measurement technique. As of March 2018, the database includes data collected at 35 sites in 15 Köppen climate zones from the years 2004 to 2017 (Figure 1), including the Izaña Atmospheric Observatory and the Teide Observatory, run by the Izaña Atmospheric Research Centre (AEMET, Spain). The key variables in each dataset are hourly values of δ18O and δD in atmospheric water vapour. To support interpretation of the isotopologue data, synchronized time series of standard meteorological variables from in situ observations and ERA5 reanalyses are also provided.

The SWVID is intended to serve as a centralized platform allowing researchers to share their vapour isotope datasets, thus facilitating investigations that transcend disciplinary and geographic boundaries. SWVID is available at http://vapor-isotope.yale.edu/.

Figure 1. Map of measurement sites as of March 1, 2018. Initial point of ship cruises is marked as Ocean.

For more details, please, refer to: Wei, Z., X. Lee, F. Aemisegger, M. Benetti, M. Berkelhammer, M. Casado, K. Caylor, E. Christner, C. Dyroff, O. García, Y. González, T. Griffis, N. Kurita, J. Liang, M.-C. Liang, G. Lin, D. Noone, K. Gribanov, N. C. Munksgaard, M. Schneider, F. Ritter, H. C. Steen-Larsen, C. Vallet-Coulomb, X. Wen, J. S. Wright, W. Xiao, and K. Yoshimura: A global database of water vapor isotopes measured with high temporal resolution infrared laser spectroscopy, Scientific Data volume6, Article number: 180302, doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.302, 2019.

https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata2018302

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