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Water vapor amounts are highly variable in both the horizontal and vertical throughout the middle and upper troposphere, and the water vapor channel is very sensitive to this variability.
Since the water vapor channel is sensitive to the upper 3 millimeters of moisture in the atmospheric column, the weighting function represents the layer in which that amount of moisture is located.
As moisture increases in the upper half of the atmosphere, the weighting function lifts about 100 millibars, indicating that contributions to the detected radiance originate from a higher layer of the atmosphere.
Note that there is negligible contribution from the surface and lower atmosphere.
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