Changes to radiosonde reports and their processing for numerical weather prediction

Ingleby, Bruce; Edwards, David R.

doi:10.1002/asl2.518

Cited by 18 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Radiosonde humidity and temperature profile data remain a major source of information for NWP assimilation systems because they act as a reference for aircraft and satellite reports (Ingleby and Edwards, 2015). During the HyMeX SOPs, and especially during the Intensive Observing Periods (IOPs), enhanced observations were made from operational radiosonde stations as well as from dedicated campaign sites .…”

Section: Validation Of Radiosonde Humidity Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…During the HyMeX SOPs, and especially during the Intensive Observing Periods (IOPs), enhanced observations were made from operational radiosonde stations as well as from dedicated campaign sites . Mainly three types of radiosondes were used over the region: Modem M10, the latest version of sonde manufactured by the French company Modem (at the time of the SOP1, these sensors were used at most French radiosonde stations, except at Bordeaux), Vaisala RS92 manufactured by Vaisala (this is currently the most widely used radiosonde in the world: Ingleby and Edwards, 2015) and Graw DFM-09, the latest version of sonde manufactured by the German company Graw (these sondes are used in operations in Germany).…”

Section: Validation Of Radiosonde Humidity Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A high‐quality reprocessed ground‐based GPS dataset for atmospheric process studies, radiosonde and model evaluation, and reanalysis of HyMeX Special Observing Period

Bock

Bosser

Pacione

et al. 2016

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

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A special screening procedure is developed for the removal of outliers in the GPS Zenith Total Delay (ZTD) data. ZTD data are converted to integrated water vapour (IWV) using surface pressure information from an AROME-WMED operational analysis. The reprocessed ZTD and IWV data are used to assess the accuracy of the near-real time E-GVAP ZTD data assimilated in operational numerical weather prediction systems and to validate the IWV data from the AROME-WMED operational analysis and AROME-WMED reanalysis 1, and from radiosonde observations. The mean differences between E-GVAP and reprocessed ZTD data are not negligible and lie in the range from −3 to +3 mm. The standard deviations of differences are between 4 and 8 mm. The comparisons of IWV from AROME-WMED analyses and the reprocessed GPS data show high quality of the analyses where operational GPS data are assimilated and lower quality where no GPS data are assimilated. Small but significant biases are found in the radiosonde data during daytime (−0.5 to +1.4 kg m −2 ), but their origin is not determined so far. Thanks to the high spatial density of the reprocessed GPS stations, both the large-scale and small-scale variations in IWV can be documented. The case of HyMeX Intensive Observing Period 8 is presented as an example of a heavy precipitation event. This work suggests that improved quality of the humidity fields can be expected of the future AROME-WMED reanalysis 2 as a result of the assimilation of the reprocessed GPS data.

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Section: Validation Of Radiosonde Humidity Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Validation Of Radiosonde Humidity Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A high‐quality reprocessed ground‐based GPS dataset for atmospheric process studies, radiosonde and model evaluation, and reanalysis of HyMeX Special Observing Period

Bock

Bosser

Pacione

et al. 2016

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

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“…surface, 925,850,700,500,400,300,250,200,150,100,70,50,30,20, and 10 hPa, which are the so-called standard pressure level of radiosondes transmitted in the alphanumeric TEMP format. Currently, the global operational upper-air network is migrating towards high-resolution radiosonde reports in the BUFR format (Ingleby and Edwards, 2015). In the interest of clarity, the method is described as applied to one selected pressure level below.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tobin et al (2006) developed a SASBE for the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) site Southern Great Plains 1 , which was used to validate retrievals of temperature and water vapour from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS; Aumann et al, 2003). Maillard Barras et al (2015) present a methodology to combine in situ ozonesonde and spacebased microwave radiometer measurements from SOMORA into an ozone SASBE. The authors found improved agreement between the ozone SASBE and the Microwave Limb Sounder (AURA/MLS) in comparison to the agreement with the operational SOMORA retrieval which does not include ozonesonde profiles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining data from the distributed GRUAN site Lauder–Invercargill, New Zealand, to provide a site atmospheric state best estimate of temperature

Tradowsky

Bodeker

Querel

et al. 2018

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. A site atmospheric state best estimate (SASBE) of the temperature profile above the GCOS (Global Climate Observing System) Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN) site at Lauder, New Zealand, has been developed. Data from multiple sources are combined within the SASBE to generate a high temporal resolution data set that includes an estimate of the uncertainty on every value.The SASBE has been developed to enhance the value of measurements made at the distributed GRUAN site at Lauder and Invercargill (about 180 km apart), and to demonstrate a methodology which can be adapted to other distributed sites. Within GRUAN, a distributed site consists of a cluster of instruments at different locations.The temperature SASBE combines measurements from radiosondes and automatic weather stations at Lauder and Invercargill, and ERA5 reanalysis, which is used to calculate a diurnal temperature cycle to which the SASBE converges in the absence of any measurements.The SASBE provides hourly temperature profiles at 16 pressure levels between the surface and 10 hPa for the years 1997 to 2012. Every temperature value has an associated uncertainty which is calculated by propagating the measurement uncertainties, the ERA5 ensemble standard deviations, and the ERA5 representativeness uncertainty through the retrieval chain. The SASBE has been long-term archived and is identified using the digital object identifier https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1195779.The study demonstrates a method to combine data collected at distributed sites. The resulting best-estimate temperature data product for Lauder is expected to be valuable for satellite and model validation as measurements of atmospheric essential climate variables are sparse in the Southern Hemisphere. The SASBE could, for example, be used to constrain a radiative transfer model to provide top-of-the-atmosphere radiances with traceable uncertainty estimates.

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“…The mean forecast temperature profile is computed by using a sample of nine 1D column profiles from across the London Heathrow domain (Mirza, ). The standard deviation of the mean forecast temperature profile indicates that at this time between the pressure altitude range 300 and 3,000 m there is little variation across the domain (<0.5 K) and below 300 m it is around 1.5 K. (For this pressure altitude range Ingleby and Edwards () estimated the average UKV model error to be ±0.75 K compared against high‐resolution radiosonde reports. )…”

Section: Inversion Case Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards operational use of aircraft‐derived observations: a case study at London Heathrow airport

Mirza

Ballard

Dance

et al. 2019

Meteorological Applications

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Mode‐Selective Enhanced Surveillance (Mode‐S EHS) aircraft reports can be collected at a low cost and are readily available around busy airports. The new work presented here demonstrates that observations derived from Mode‐S EHS reports can be used to study the evolution of temperature inversions since the data have a high spatial and temporal frequency. This is illustrated by a case study centred around London Heathrow airport for the period January 4–5, 2015. Using Mode‐S EHS reports from multiple aircraft and after applying quality control criteria, vertical temperature profiles are constructed by aggregating these reports at discrete intervals between the surface and 3,000 m. To improve these derived temperatures, four smoothing methods using low‐pass filters are evaluated. The effect of smoothing reduces the variance in the aircraft derived temperature by approximately half. After smoothing, the temperature variance between the altitudes 3,000 and 1,000 m is 1–2 K; below 1,000 m, it is 2–4 K. Although the differences between the four smoothing methods are small, exponential smoothing is favoured because it uses all available Mode‐S EHS reports. The resulting vertical profiles may be useful in operational meteorology for identifying elevated temperature inversions above 1,000 m. However, below 1,000 m they are less useful because of the reduced precision of the reported Mach number. A better source of in situ temperature observations would be for aircraft to use the meteorological reporting function of their automatic dependent surveillance system.

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Changes to radiosonde reports and their processing for numerical weather prediction

Cited by 18 publications

References 15 publications

A high‐quality reprocessed ground‐based GPS dataset for atmospheric process studies, radiosonde and model evaluation, and reanalysis of HyMeX Special Observing Period

A high‐quality reprocessed ground‐based GPS dataset for atmospheric process studies, radiosonde and model evaluation, and reanalysis of HyMeX Special Observing Period

Combining data from the distributed GRUAN site Lauder–Invercargill, New Zealand, to provide a site atmospheric state best estimate of temperature

Towards operational use of aircraft‐derived observations: a case study at London Heathrow airport

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