Identification

Title

Comparing radiosonde and COSMIC atmospheric profile data to quantify differences among radiosonde types and the effects of imperfect collocation on comparison statistics

Abstract

Collocated global atmospheric temperature, humidity, and refractivity profiles from radiosondes and from Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) radio occultation data for April 2008 to October 2009 are compared for two purposes. The first is to quantify the error characteristics of 12 radiosonde types flown in the global operational network, as a function of height and for both day and nighttime observations, for each of the three variables. The second is to determine the effects of imperfect temporal and spatial collocation on the radiosonde-COSMIC differences, for application to the general problem of satellite calibration and validation using in situ sounding data. Statistical analyses of the comparisons reveal differences among radiosonde types in refractivity, relative humidity, and radiation-corrected temperature data. Most of the radiosonde types show a dry bias, particularly in the upper troposphere, with the bias in daytime drier than in nighttime. Weather-scale variability, introduced by collocation time and distance mismatch, affects the comparison of radiosonde and COSMIC data by increasing the standard deviation errors, which are generally proportional to the size of the time and distance mismatch within the collocation window of 6 h and 250 km considered. Globally, in the troposphere (850-200 hPa), the collocation mismatch impacts on the comparison standard deviation errors for temperature are 0.35 K per 3 h and 0.42 K per 100 km and, for relative humidity, are 3.3% per 3 h and 3.1% per 100 km, indicating an approximate equivalence of 3 h to 100 km in terms of mismatch impact.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7rr1zst

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2010-12-03T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact