Thousands of comparisons between total precipitable water vapor (PWV) obtained from radiosonde (Vaisala RS80-H) profiles and PWV retrieved from a collocated microwave radiometer (MWR) were made at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program’s Southern Great Plains Cloud and Radiation Testbed (SGP CART) site in northern Oklahoma from 1994 to 2000. These comparisons show that the RS80-H r...

The global structure of recent stratospheric climate trends is examined in radiosonde data. In contrast to conclusions published in previous assessments of stratospheric temperature trends, it is demonstrated that in the annual mean the tropical stratosphere has cooled substantially over the past few decades. The cooling of the tropical stratosphere is apparent in both nighttime and adjusted ra...

[1] We use a fifty-year record of wintertime radiosonde observations at the South Pole to estimate the precipitable water vapor column (PWV) over the entire period. Humidity data from older radiosondes is of limited reliability; however, we think an estimation of PWV is possible using temperature data because the wintertime lower troposphere is very close to saturated. From temperature data we ...

The relevance of water vapour in atmospheric physics and climate research contrasts strongly with the availability of humidity data in the Arctic. The most extensive humidity data set is based on approx. 80 radiosonde stations north of 60°N, but suffers from two major problems: Sensor diversity and sensor limitations under Arctic conditions, on the one hand, and lacking radiosonde launch sites ...

[1] An integrated profiling technique (IPT) for the simultaneous retrieval of the atmospheric state parameters temperature, humidity, and liquid water content profiles is assessed. The method combines measurements of a modern, ground-based profiling station equipped with a microwave profiler, cloud radar, and ceilometer, with the closest operational radiosonde measurement and standard surface-b...

Comparison of microwave satellite humidity data and radiosonde profiles: a survey of European stations V. O. John and S. A. Buehler Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany Received: 15 October 2004 – Accepted: 27 January 2005 – Published: 15 March 2005 Correspondence to: V. O. John ([email protected]) © 2005 Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative ...

Radiosonde humidity measurements are fundamentally important to a variety of applications, including radiative transfer calculations, validation of remote-sensor retrievals, parameterization of cloud processes, and initialization of (or assimilation into) numerical models. Vaisala radiosondes, used by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program and extensively throughout the world, are ...

OCTOBER 2004 AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY | BACKGROUND. The ozonesonde measurement. Although ozone-measuring satellites have been collecting data since 1970 (Heath et al. 1975), validation of profiles and total column measurements is still performed by relatively lowtechnology instruments. Total column ozone is verified with spectrophotometric data from a ground-based network (Bojkov et al. ...

Observed surface downward longwave radiances from the Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) were compared with line-by-line radiative transfer model (LBLRTM) calculations from April 1994 to November 1996 for “clear-sky conditions” in the 800-1250 atmospheric The observed radiance data used herein were measured by the window region. Results show that the mean AERI-LBLRTM AERI at the...

Radiosonde relative humidity (RH) measurements are fundamentally important to Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program goals because they are used in a wide variety of both operational and research applications, including initialization of numerical models and evaluation of model results, validation of remote-sensor water vapor retrievals, construction of water vapor climatologies and st...