The 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH) volcanic eruption injected around 150 Tg water vapor into the stratosphere. Using Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) water vapor measurement, this study provides the first evaluation of the HTHH-induced stratospheric water vapor (SWV) products revealed by the ERA5, MERRA2 and M2-SCREAM reanalyses. Results show that ERA5 and MERRA2 underestimate the SWV mass compared to MLS observations, while M2-SCREAM shows good consistency not only in the magnitude but also in the transport and depletion details. M2-SCREAM also perform well in the estimation of the long-term trend of SWV mass, while ERA5 and MERRA2 both overestimate the trend, suggesting the potential value of M2-SCREAM in estimating the long-term climatic influence of HTHH eruption. The extent to which the assimilation of SWV contributes to the significant discrepancies observed between M2-SCREAM and ERA5 as well as MERRA2 offers valuable insights for enhancing the numerical simulation of reanalyses.

stratospheric water vapor,HTHH,reanalysis datasets