Observational evidence of moistening the lowermost stratosphere via isentropic mixing across the subtropical jet

Isentropic mixing across and above the subtropical jet is a significant mechanism for stratosphere–troposphere exchange. In this work, we show new observational evidence on the role of this process in moistening the lowermost stratosphere. The new measurement, obtained from the Spatial Heterodyne Observations of Water (SHOW) instrument during a demonstration flight on the NASA's ER-2 high-altitude research aircraft, captured an event of poleward water vapour transport, including a fine-scale (vertically <∼1 km) moist filament above the local tropopause in a high-spatial-resolution two-dimensional cross section of the water vapour distribution. Analysis of these measurements combined with ERA5 reanalysis data reveals that this poleward mixing of air with enhanced water vapour occurred in the region of a double tropopause following a large Rossby wave-breaking event. These new observations highlight the importance of high-resolution measurements in resolving processes that are important to the lowermost-stratosphere water vapour budget.