On the importance of Vaisala RS92 radiosonde humidity corrections for a better agreement between measured and modeled satellite radiances

Kottayil, A., Buehler, S. A., John, V. O., Miloshevich, L. M., Milz, M. and Holl, G. (2012) On the importance of Vaisala RS92 radiosonde humidity corrections for a better agreement between measured and modeled satellite radiances. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 29 (2). pp. 248-259. ISSN 0739-0572 doi: 10.1175/JTECH-D-11-00080.1

Abstract/Summary

A study has been carried out to assess the importance of radiosonde corrections in improving the agreement between satellite and radiosonde measurements of upper-tropospheric humidity. Infrared [High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS)-12] and microwave [Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU)-18] measurements from the NOAA-17 satellite were used for this purpose. The agreement was assessed by comparing the satellite measurements against simulated measurements using collocated radiosonde profiles of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program undertaken at tropical and midlatitude sites. The Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator (ARTS) was used to simulate the satellite radiances. The comparisons have been done under clear-sky conditions, separately for daytime and nighttime soundings. Only Vaisala RS92 radiosonde sensors were used and an empirical correction (EC) was applied to the radiosonde measurements. The EC includes correction for mean calibration bias and for solar radiation error, and it removes radiosonde bias relative to three instruments of known accuracy. For the nighttime dataset, the EC significantly reduces the bias from 0.63 to 20.10 K in AMSU-18 and from 1.26 to 0.35 K in HIRS-12. The EC has an even greater impact on the daytime dataset with a bias reduction from 2.38 to 0.28 K in AMSU-18 and from 2.51 to 0.59 K in HIRS-12. The present study promises a more accurate approach in future radiosonde-based studies in the upper troposphere.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/49057
Identification Number/DOI	10.1175/JTECH-D-11-00080.1
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	No Reading authors. Back catalogue items Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Uncontrolled Keywords	hirs, amsu, uth, radiosonde corrections, john, radiosonde
Publisher	American Meteorological Society
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