On the vertical distribution of carbon monoxide over Bay of Bengal during winter: Role of water vapour and vertical updrafts

•The high altitude peak in CO mixing ratios around 9–10 km over Bay of Bengal.•The peak was prominent over south Bay of Bengal, values comparable to surface CO.•Vertical updraft was partially responsible for the higher CO at higher altitude.•Horizontal transport was also partial cause of the higher CO at higher altitude.•Depletion of CO by water vapour at lower altitudes, confirmed by model simulations.

The differences in the spatial pattern of column carbon monoxide (CO) and in-situ measured near-surface CO over Bay of Bengal (BoB) during winter were examined in the light of vertical distribution of CO as retrieved from MOPITT (Measurements Of Pollution In The Troposphere) on board Terra spacecraft. The column CO showed relatively high values over southern-BoB whereas the near-surface CO showed low mixing ratio indicating the existence of significant amount of CO at higher altitudes. The vertical profiles of CO over the BoB region retrieved from MOPITT exhibit a high altitude peak around ~9 km altitude region. The role of water vapour and convective activity/vertical updrafts in establishing the observed vertical profile of CO was investigated. It is found that CO got uplifted to the higher altitude due to updrafts and water vapour caused depletion of CO at lower altitudes which appeared as an apparent high in CO mixing ratio at higher altitude relative to that over lower altitude. The role of water vapour in the destruction of CO was confirmed by box model simulations. Airmass back-trajectory analysis showed that the long range transport from lower troposphere/boundary layer was also partially responsible for higher mixing ratios at higher altitude. In addition, a comparison of in-situ measured near-surface CO and those retrieved from MOPITT using retrieval algorithm Versions 4 and 5 showed that the points of discrepancy have reduced in the Version 5. Biomass burning and anthropogenic activities taking place over the Myanmar landmass was found to be responsible for the hot spots of near-surface-CO over the northeast-BoB.