The problem of abnormally dry bias induced by radiosonde humidity sensor failure in the low and midtroposphere is studied based on the global operational radiosonde relative humidity observations from December 2008 to November 2009. The concurrent humidity retrievals from the FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC radio occultation mission are also used to assess the quality of the radiosonde humidity observations....

Multiple tropopauses are structures that regularly recur in the midlatitudes. Recent studies have relied on the notion of the excursion of tropical air from the upper troposphere into higher latitudes, thereby overlaying the tropopause of the midlatitudes. We herein analyse the origin and characteristics of the air at the Boulder radiosonde station, between the first and second tropopauses comb...

1. Introduction To measure the vertical profiles of temperature and water vapor that are essential for modeling atmospheric processes, radiosondes are traditionally the privileged way to obtain upper-air information. Radiosondes, however, present certain limitations. It typically takes 40 minutes for a radiosonde to ascend through the troposphere and about 2 hours to ascend to full height. Cost...

[1] Ten years of high-resolution radiosonde data are contrasted with fifteen years of ECMWF reanalysis (ERA) data to explore the tropopause region above two midlatitude stations (Munich and Stuttgart) in Southern Germany. We present time-averaged vertical profiles of several meteorological parameters relative to the tropopause. A strong mean inversion at the tropopause is evident from the radio...

We report an undocumented major warming of the Antarctic winter troposphere that is larger than any previously identified regional tropospheric warming on Earth. This result has come to light through an analysis of recently digitized and rigorously quality controlled Antarctic radiosonde observations. The data show that regional midtropospheric temperatures have increased at a statistically sig...

Data from the United Kingdom operational upper air network, as well as from special radiosonde trials, have been analysed to provide statistics of spatial and temporal atmospheric variations. These statistics are applied to a study of the network performance and of representativeness errors associated with the use of the data in synoptic analysis. The results also have application to comparison...

A method for in situ detection of atmospheric turbulence has been developed using an inexpensive sensor carried within a conventional meteorological radiosonde. The sensor—a Hall effect magnetometer—was used to monitor the terrestrial magnetic field. Rapid time scale (10 s or less) fluctuations in the magnetic field measurement were related to the motion of the radiosonde, which was strongly in...

The temperature difference between adjacent 0000 and 1200 UTC weather balloon (radiosonde) reports shows a pervasive tendency toward cooler daytime compared to nighttime observations since the 1970s, especially at tropical stations. Several characteristics of this trend indicate that it is an artifact of systematic reductions over time in the uncorrected error due to daytime solar heating of th...