radiation input from the sun is the source of energy for the earth’s climate system (hartmann, 1994). most of the solar radiation absorbed at the surface, the rest is absorbed by the atmosphere. the global temperature profile of the atmosphere reflects a balance between the radiative, convective, and dynamical heating/cooling of the surface-atmosphere system. understanding of the climate change...

Over the period from 1979 to 2001, tropospheric trends derived from a widely cited analysis of the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) temperature record show little or no warming, while surface temperature trends based on in situ observations show a pronounced warming of ;0.2 K decade21. This discrepancy between trends at the surface and in the upper atmosphere has been a source of significant debat...

[1] IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) AR4 (Fourth Assessment Report) GCMs (General Circulation Models) predict a tropical tropospheric warming that increases with height, reaches its maximum at ∼200 hPa, and decreases to zero near the tropical tropopause. This study examines the GCM‐predicted maximum warming in the tropical upper troposphere using satellite MSU (microwave soundin...

Measurements made by microwave sounding instruments provide a multidecadal record of atmospheric temperature in several thick atmospheric layers. Satellite measurements began in late 1978 with the launch of the first Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) and have continued to the present via the use of measurements from the follow-on series of instruments, the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU). T...

Abstract We present a new version (v5.0) of the NOAA Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) mid‐tropospheric temperature (TMT) time series. This data set uses backward‐merging approach to intercalibrate 16 satellite‐based microwave sounding records. The instrument observations included those from Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) during 1979–2004, Advanced Unit‐A (AMSU‐A) 1998–2017, ...

Satellite-based layer average stratospheric temperature (T) climate data records (CDRs) now span more than three decades and so can elucidate climate variability associated with processes on multiple time scales. We intercompare and analyze available published T CDRs covering at least two decades, with a focus on Stratospheric Sounding Unit (SSU) and Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) CDRs. Recent r...