Identification

Title

Tropical cyclone cloud-top height and vertical temperature structure detection using GPS radio occultation measurements

Abstract

The accurate determination of tropical cyclone (TC) cloud-top height and its vertical thermal structure using the GPS radio occultation (RO) technique is demonstrated in this study. Cloud-top heights are determined by using the bending angle anomaly and the temperature anomaly profiles during the TC events, and the results are compared to near-coincident cloud-top heights determined by Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) measurements. Based on 34 closely located RO-CALIOP pairs during 2006 to 2009, TC cloud-top heights from RO are highly correlated with CALIOP (r=0.84), with a mean RO-CALIOP cloud-top height difference of approximately 500 m and a root-mean-square difference near 1 km. GPS RO data also allow analysis of the TC thermal structure, showing warm anomalies in the middle troposphere and cold anomalies in the upper levels, with a strong inversion near cloud top. We further investigate the thermal structure of the TCs from collocated radiosondes, and identify 246 RO-radiosonde pairs from 2001 to 2009. Radiosonde data confirm the thermal structure identified in GPS RO, with a strong inversion near the inferred cloud top. The mean difference between RO-derived inversion heights and those from radiosonde temperature profiles is approximately 500 m. Results show that, while cloud-top height detected from nadir-viewing satellites can be easily biased by a few kilometers, the biases of RO-derived cloud-top height are within ~500 m.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d79887xq

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

2013-06-16T00:00:00Z

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