Observed tropical and extratropical modes of variability in moisture fields from climate satellite dataset

Global and high resolution climate dataset taken from satellite images represents one of the most interestingsources for the monitoring and the investigation of present climate and, for short time periods (decadal), analternative to NWP reanalysis datasets. The Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM-SAF)archive represents a complete global dataset since January 2004 of several daily and monthly averaged atmosphericvariables such as radiative flows at surface and TOA, clouds parameters, precipitable water, surface albedo and soon.In this study CM-SAF daily data of layered precipitable water and relative humidity for a period of six years,all over the globe (with the exception of polar regions), have been analyzed. Applying teleconnectivity mapsboth in horizontal and in vertical, and multivariate statistics methods (EOF) to moisture fields, the appearanceof principal modes of general circulation variability patterns over the tropical band (Indian peninsula, southernAfrica, Australia and West Pacific Ocean) seems to have been revealed. Moreover, comparisons of precipitablewater fields with surface albedo and clouds data, yet collected from CM-SAF archive, have been evaluated.