Articles | Volume 14, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-2327-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-2327-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
26 Mar 2021
Research article |
| 26 Mar 2021
| 26 Mar 2021
Monitoring sudden stratospheric warmings using radio occultation: a new approach demonstrated based on the 2009 event
Ying Li
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
State Key Laboratory of Geodesy and Earth's Dynamics, Innovation
Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology (APM), Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China
Gottfried Kirchengast
Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change (WEGC) and Institute
for Geophysics, Astrophysics, and Meteorology/Institute of Physics,
University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria
Marc Schwärz
Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change (WEGC) and Institute
for Geophysics, Astrophysics, and Meteorology/Institute of Physics,
University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria
Florian Ladstädter
Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change (WEGC) and Institute
for Geophysics, Astrophysics, and Meteorology/Institute of Physics,
University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria
Yunbin Yuan
State Key Laboratory of Geodesy and Earth's Dynamics, Innovation
Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology (APM), Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China
Related authors
Ying Li, Gottfried Kirchengast, Marc Schwaerz, and Yunbin Yuan
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 1259–1284, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1259-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1259-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We develop a new approach to monitor sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events since 1980 and develop a 42-year SSW event climatology. Detection and evaluation results suggest that the new method is robust for SSW monitoring. We also found an increase in the duration of SSW main-phase warmings of about 5(±2) d over the three decades from the 1980s to the 2010s, raising the average duration from about 10 to 15 d, and the warming strength is also found increased.
Congliang Liu, Gottfried Kirchengast, Yueqiang Sun, Kefei Zhang, Robert Norman, Marc Schwaerz, Weihua Bai, Qifei Du, and Ying Li
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 2427–2440, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-2427-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-2427-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
In this study, we focused on investigating the causes of the higher-order residual ionospheric error (RIE) in the GNSS RO events, by employing detailed along-ray-path analyses of atmospheric and ionospheric refractivities, impact parameter changes, and bending angles and RIEs under asymmetric and symmetric ionospheric structures. We found that the main causes of the high RIEs are a combination of physics-based effects, where asymmetric ionospheric conditions play the primary role.
Andreas Kvas, Gottfried Kirchengast, and Jürgen Fuchsberger
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-176, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-176, 2025
Preprint under review for ESSD
Short summary
Short summary
The WegenerNet 3D Open-Air Laboratory for Climate Change Research in southeastern Austria observes the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of 10 kilometers. A variety of different sensors measure precipitation, water vapor content, humidity, temperature, and cloud properties in high spatial and temporal resolution. This enables detailed analyses of weather phenomena in a changing climate, such as heavy rainfall events and thunderstorms.
Florian Ladstädter, Matthias Stocker, Sebastian Scher, and Andrea K. Steiner
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2100, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2100, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Short summary
The tropopause, the boundary between the lower and upper atmosphere, is a sensitive marker of climate change. We studied changes in tropopause height and temperature over the past two decades using precise satellite observations. We found warming in the tropics and rising tropopause heights in many regions, especially over Asia and the Middle East. These changes reflect how both atmospheric layers are responding to climate change and highlight the need for continued satellite monitoring.
Irena Nimac, Julia Danzer, and Gottfried Kirchengast
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 265–286, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-265-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-265-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Due to the shortcomings of available observations, having accurate global 3D wind fields remains a challenge. A promising option is radio occultation (RO) satellite data, which enable the derivation of winds based on wind approximations. We test how well RO winds describe the ERA5 winds. We separate the total wind difference into the approximation bias and the systematic difference between the two datasets. The results show the utility of RO winds for climate monitoring and analyses.
Kamilya Yessimbet, Andrea K. Steiner, Florian Ladstädter, and Albert Ossó
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10893–10919, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10893-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10893-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Major sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) and atmospheric blocking can markedly influence winter extratropical surface weather. To study the relationship between SSWs and blocking, we examine dynamic stratosphere–troposphere coupling using vertically highly resolved observations from global navigation satellite system radio occultation for 2007–2019. Our results provide a purely observational view of the evolution of major SSWs, their link to blocking, and their effect on the polar tropopause.
Julia Danzer, Magdalena Pieler, and Gottfried Kirchengast
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 4979–4995, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4979-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4979-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We investigated the potential of radio occultation (RO) data for climate-oriented wind field monitoring, focusing on the equatorial band within ±5° latitude. In this region, the geostrophic balance breaks down, and the equatorial balance approximation takes over. The study encourages the use of RO wind fields for mesoscale climate monitoring for the equatorial region, showing a small improvement in the troposphere when including the meridional wind in the zonal-mean total wind speed.
Alejandro de la Torre, Peter Alexander, Torsten Schmidt, Andrea K. Steiner, Florian Ladstädter, Rodrigo Hierro, and Pablo Llamedo
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1654, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1654, 2024
Preprint archived
Short summary
Short summary
A single tropopause separates the troposphere below from the stratosphere above. In regions of strong vertical wind shear, a second tropopause layer may be associated to complex weather patterns. From GNSS radio occultation data, the distribution of multiple tropopause and its possible relation to the variability of climate indices is explored. A cluster analysis is applied to geographically associate the DT occurrences with the climate indices and a multivariate linear regression is constructed
Josef Innerkofler, Gottfried Kirchengast, Marc Schwärz, Christian Marquardt, and Yago Andres
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 5217–5247, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-5217-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-5217-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Atmosphere remote sensing using GNSS radio occultation provides a highly valuable basis for atmospheric and climate science. For the highest-quality demands, the Wegener Center set up a rigorous system for processing low-level measurement data. This excess-phase processing setup includes integrated quality control and uncertainty estimation. It was successfully evaluated and inter-compared, ensuring the capability of producing reliable long-term data records for climate applications.
Irena Nimac, Julia Danzer, and Gottfried Kirchengast
Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2023-100, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2023-100, 2023
Revised manuscript not accepted
Short summary
Short summary
As global wind measurements are limited by low spatial coverage or lack of vertical profile information, radio occultation (RO) satellite data might be of help. Wind fields are indirectly retrieved using the geostrophic approximation. We first test how well the method performs, finding agreement better than 2 m/s in wind speed. In a second step, we investigate how good RO and reanalysis data compare. The results suggest that RO-derived wind fields provide added value for climate monitoring.
Karina von Schuckmann, Audrey Minière, Flora Gues, Francisco José Cuesta-Valero, Gottfried Kirchengast, Susheel Adusumilli, Fiammetta Straneo, Michaël Ablain, Richard P. Allan, Paul M. Barker, Hugo Beltrami, Alejandro Blazquez, Tim Boyer, Lijing Cheng, John Church, Damien Desbruyeres, Han Dolman, Catia M. Domingues, Almudena García-García, Donata Giglio, John E. Gilson, Maximilian Gorfer, Leopold Haimberger, Maria Z. Hakuba, Stefan Hendricks, Shigeki Hosoda, Gregory C. Johnson, Rachel Killick, Brian King, Nicolas Kolodziejczyk, Anton Korosov, Gerhard Krinner, Mikael Kuusela, Felix W. Landerer, Moritz Langer, Thomas Lavergne, Isobel Lawrence, Yuehua Li, John Lyman, Florence Marti, Ben Marzeion, Michael Mayer, Andrew H. MacDougall, Trevor McDougall, Didier Paolo Monselesan, Jan Nitzbon, Inès Otosaka, Jian Peng, Sarah Purkey, Dean Roemmich, Kanako Sato, Katsunari Sato, Abhishek Savita, Axel Schweiger, Andrew Shepherd, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Leon Simons, Donald A. Slater, Thomas Slater, Andrea K. Steiner, Toshio Suga, Tanguy Szekely, Wim Thiery, Mary-Louise Timmermans, Inne Vanderkelen, Susan E. Wjiffels, Tonghua Wu, and Michael Zemp
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 1675–1709, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1675-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1675-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Earth's climate is out of energy balance, and this study quantifies how much heat has consequently accumulated over the past decades (ocean: 89 %, land: 6 %, cryosphere: 4 %, atmosphere: 1 %). Since 1971, this accumulated heat reached record values at an increasing pace. The Earth heat inventory provides a comprehensive view on the status and expectation of global warming, and we call for an implementation of this global climate indicator into the Paris Agreement’s Global Stocktake.
Ying Li, Gottfried Kirchengast, Marc Schwaerz, and Yunbin Yuan
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 1259–1284, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1259-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1259-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We develop a new approach to monitor sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events since 1980 and develop a 42-year SSW event climatology. Detection and evaluation results suggest that the new method is robust for SSW monitoring. We also found an increase in the duration of SSW main-phase warmings of about 5(±2) d over the three decades from the 1980s to the 2010s, raising the average duration from about 10 to 15 d, and the warming strength is also found increased.
Wouter Dorigo, Irene Himmelbauer, Daniel Aberer, Lukas Schremmer, Ivana Petrakovic, Luca Zappa, Wolfgang Preimesberger, Angelika Xaver, Frank Annor, Jonas Ardö, Dennis Baldocchi, Marco Bitelli, Günter Blöschl, Heye Bogena, Luca Brocca, Jean-Christophe Calvet, J. Julio Camarero, Giorgio Capello, Minha Choi, Michael C. Cosh, Nick van de Giesen, Istvan Hajdu, Jaakko Ikonen, Karsten H. Jensen, Kasturi Devi Kanniah, Ileen de Kat, Gottfried Kirchengast, Pankaj Kumar Rai, Jenni Kyrouac, Kristine Larson, Suxia Liu, Alexander Loew, Mahta Moghaddam, José Martínez Fernández, Cristian Mattar Bader, Renato Morbidelli, Jan P. Musial, Elise Osenga, Michael A. Palecki, Thierry Pellarin, George P. Petropoulos, Isabella Pfeil, Jarrett Powers, Alan Robock, Christoph Rüdiger, Udo Rummel, Michael Strobel, Zhongbo Su, Ryan Sullivan, Torbern Tagesson, Andrej Varlagin, Mariette Vreugdenhil, Jeffrey Walker, Jun Wen, Fred Wenger, Jean Pierre Wigneron, Mel Woods, Kun Yang, Yijian Zeng, Xiang Zhang, Marek Zreda, Stephan Dietrich, Alexander Gruber, Peter van Oevelen, Wolfgang Wagner, Klaus Scipal, Matthias Drusch, and Roberto Sabia
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 5749–5804, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5749-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5749-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) is a community-based open-access data portal for soil water measurements taken at the ground and is accessible at https://ismn.earth. Over 1000 scientific publications and thousands of users have made use of the ISMN. The scope of this paper is to inform readers about the data and functionality of the ISMN and to provide a review of the scientific progress facilitated through the ISMN with the scope to shape future research and operations.
Jürgen Fuchsberger, Gottfried Kirchengast, and Thomas Kabas
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 1307–1334, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-1307-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-1307-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The paper describes the most recent weather and climate data from the WegenerNet station networks, providing hydrometeorological measurements since 2007 at very high spatial and temporal resolution for long-term observation in two regions in southeastern Austria: the WegenerNet Feldbach Region, in the Alpine forelands, comprising 155 stations with 1 station about every 2 km2, and the WegenerNet Johnsbachtal, in a mountainous region, with 14 stations at altitudes from about 600 m to 2200 m.
Michael Gorbunov, Gottfried Kirchengast, and Kent B. Lauritsen
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 853–867, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-853-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-853-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Currently, the canonical transform (CT) approach to the processing of radio occultation observations is widely used. For the spherically symmetric atmosphere, the applicability of this method can be strictly proven. However, in the presence of horizontal gradients, this approach may not work. Here we introduce a generalization of the CT method in order to reduce the errors due to horizontal gradients.
Pierre-Yves Tournigand, Valeria Cigala, Elzbieta Lasota, Mohammed Hammouti, Lieven Clarisse, Hugues Brenot, Fred Prata, Gottfried Kirchengast, Andrea K. Steiner, and Riccardo Biondi
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 3139–3159, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3139-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3139-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
The detection and monitoring of volcanic clouds are important for aviation management, climate and weather forecasts. We present in this paper the first comprehensive archive collecting spatial and temporal information about volcanic clouds generated by the 11 largest eruptions of this century. We provide a complete set of state-of-the-art data allowing the development and testing of new algorithms contributing to improve the accuracy of the estimation of fundamental volcanic cloud parameters.
Elżbieta Lasota, Andrea K. Steiner, Gottfried Kirchengast, and Riccardo Biondi
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 2679–2693, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2679-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2679-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
In this work, we provide a comprehensive archive of tropical cyclone vertical structure for the period 2001–2018. The tropical cyclone best tracks are co-located in time and space with high-vertical-resolution atmospheric profiles (temperature, pressure, humidity and refractivity) from radio occultations and with climatological profiles. This dataset can be used to analyze the inner vertical thermodynamic structure of tropical cyclones and the pre-cyclone environment.
Clara Hohmann, Gottfried Kirchengast, Sungmin O, Wolfgang Rieger, and Ulrich Foelsche
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2020-453, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2020-453, 2020
Manuscript not accepted for further review
Short summary
Short summary
Heavy precipitation events are still feeding with a large uncertainty into hydrological models. Based on the highly dense station network WegenerNet (one station per 2 km2) we analyzed the sensitivity of runoff simulations to different rain network densities and interpolation methods in small catchments. We find, and quantify relevant characteristics, that runoff curves especially from
short-duration convective rainfall events are strongly influenced by gauge station density and distribution.
Karina von Schuckmann, Lijing Cheng, Matthew D. Palmer, James Hansen, Caterina Tassone, Valentin Aich, Susheel Adusumilli, Hugo Beltrami, Tim Boyer, Francisco José Cuesta-Valero, Damien Desbruyères, Catia Domingues, Almudena García-García, Pierre Gentine, John Gilson, Maximilian Gorfer, Leopold Haimberger, Masayoshi Ishii, Gregory C. Johnson, Rachel Killick, Brian A. King, Gottfried Kirchengast, Nicolas Kolodziejczyk, John Lyman, Ben Marzeion, Michael Mayer, Maeva Monier, Didier Paolo Monselesan, Sarah Purkey, Dean Roemmich, Axel Schweiger, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Andrew Shepherd, Donald A. Slater, Andrea K. Steiner, Fiammetta Straneo, Mary-Louise Timmermans, and Susan E. Wijffels
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 2013–2041, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2013-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2013-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Understanding how much and where the heat is distributed in the Earth system is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming oceans, atmosphere and land, rising temperatures and sea level, and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This study is a Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to obtain the Earth heat inventory over the period 1960–2018.
Andrea K. Steiner, Florian Ladstädter, Chi O. Ao, Hans Gleisner, Shu-Peng Ho, Doug Hunt, Torsten Schmidt, Ulrich Foelsche, Gottfried Kirchengast, Ying-Hwa Kuo, Kent B. Lauritsen, Anthony J. Mannucci, Johannes K. Nielsen, William Schreiner, Marc Schwärz, Sergey Sokolovskiy, Stig Syndergaard, and Jens Wickert
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 2547–2575, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-2547-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-2547-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
High-quality observations are critically important for monitoring the Earth’s changing climate. We provide information on the consistency and long-term stability of observations from GPS radio occultation (RO). We assess, for the first time, RO records from multiple RO missions and all major RO data providers. Our results quantify where RO can be used for reliable trend assessment and confirm its climate quality.
Christoph Schlager, Gottfried Kirchengast, Juergen Fuchsberger, Alexander Kann, and Heimo Truhetz
Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 2855–2873, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-2855-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-2855-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
Empirical high-resolution surface wind fields from two study areas, automatically generated by a weather diagnostic application, were intercompared with wind fields of different modeling approaches. The focus is on evaluating spatial differences and displacements between the different datasets. In general, the spatial verification indicates a better statistical agreement for the first study area (hilly WegenerNet Feldbach Region), than for the second one (mountainous WegenerNet Johnsbachtal).
Yueqiang Sun, Weihua Bai, Congliang Liu, Yan Liu, Qifei Du, Xianyi Wang, Guanglin Yang, Mi Liao, Zhongdong Yang, Xiaoxin Zhang, Xiangguang Meng, Danyang Zhao, Junming Xia, Yuerong Cai, and Gottfried Kirchengast
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 5797–5811, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5797-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5797-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
The GNSS Occultation Sounder (GNOS) is one of the new-generation payloads on board the Chinese FengYun 3 (FY-3) series of operational meteorological satellites for sounding the Earth’s neutral atmosphere and ionosphere. FY-3C GNOS, on board the FY-3 series C satellite launched in September 2013, was designed to acquire setting and rising radio occultation (RO) data by using GNSS signals from both the Chinese BDS and the US GPS. This paper reviews the FY-3C GNOS mission.
Christoph Schlager, Gottfried Kirchengast, and Juergen Fuchsberger
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 5607–5627, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5607-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5607-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
In this work we further developed and evaluated an operational weather diagnostic application, the WegenerNet Wind Product Generator (WPG), and applied it to the WegenerNet Johnsbachtal (JBT), a dense meteorological station network located in a mountainous Alpine region. The WPG automatically generates gridded high-resolution wind fields in near-real time with a temporal resolution of 30 min and a spatial resolution of 100 m x 100 m.
Julia Danzer, Marc Schwärz, Veronika Proschek, Ulrich Foelsche, and Hans Gleisner
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 4867–4882, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4867-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4867-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
Recently a new approach for the production of RO climatologies has been proposed. The idea is to propagate mean bending angle profiles through processing and retrieve directly climatological products of refractivity, density, pressure, and temperature. The averaging suppresses noise in the data, allowing the bending angles to be used up to 80 km without the need for background information. This work focuses on the comparison of the new climatologies between two processing centers.
Jakob Schwarz, Gottfried Kirchengast, and Marc Schwaerz
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 2601–2631, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-2601-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-2601-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
We process global navigation satellite system radio occultation (RO) observations in a new way with integrated uncertainty propagation; in this study we focus on retrieving atmospheric bending angles from RO excess phase profiles. We find that this new approach within our novel Reference Occultation Processing System (rOPS) exploits the strengths of RO such as its high accuracy and long-term stability in a reliable manner for global climate monitoring and other weather and climate uses.
Congliang Liu, Gottfried Kirchengast, Yueqiang Sun, Kefei Zhang, Robert Norman, Marc Schwaerz, Weihua Bai, Qifei Du, and Ying Li
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 2427–2440, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-2427-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-2427-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
In this study, we focused on investigating the causes of the higher-order residual ionospheric error (RIE) in the GNSS RO events, by employing detailed along-ray-path analyses of atmospheric and ionospheric refractivities, impact parameter changes, and bending angles and RIEs under asymmetric and symmetric ionospheric structures. We found that the main causes of the high RIEs are a combination of physics-based effects, where asymmetric ionospheric conditions play the primary role.
Hallgeir Wilhelmsen, Florian Ladstädter, Barbara Scherllin-Pirscher, and Andrea K. Steiner
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 1333–1346, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1333-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1333-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
Tropical atmospheric variability is often described using proxy indices of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. We introduce new proxies derived from GNSS radio occultation (RO) satellite measurements. Using the high vertical resolution of the RO temperature fields we obtain altitude-resolved indices which can improve the description of atmospheric variability patterns and can be used in climate studies where a detailed knowledge of these patterns is required.
Weihua Bai, Congliang Liu, Xiangguang Meng, Yueqiang Sun, Gottfried Kirchengast, Qifei Du, Xianyi Wang, Guanglin Yang, Mi Liao, Zhongdong Yang, Danyang Zhao, Junming Xia, Yuerong Cai, Lijun Liu, and Dongwei Wang
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 819–833, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-819-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-819-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
In this study we focus on evaluating zero-difference processing of BDS RO data vs. single-difference processing. From the statistics, average bias (and standard deviation) of the bending angle and refractivity profiles were found to be as small as about 0.05–0.2 % (and 0.7–1.6 %) over the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, including for the GEO, IGSO, and MEO subsets. Zero differencing was found to perform slightly better, as may be expected from its lower vulnerability to noise.
Michael E. Gorbunov and Gottfried Kirchengast
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 111–125, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-111-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-111-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
We study the systematic discreapancies between atmospheric refractivity derived from radio occulation (RO) sounding of the Earth's atmosphere and the reanalyses of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. We construct a regression-based bias model. The model can be used for the RO data propagation in the new reference occultation processing system (rOPS) including the uncertainty propagation through the retrieval chain.
Sungmin O, Ulrich Foelsche, Gottfried Kirchengast, Juergen Fuchsberger, Jackson Tan, and Walter A. Petersen
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 6559–6572, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-6559-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-6559-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
We evaluate gridded satellite rainfall estimates, from GPM IMERG, through a direct grid-to-grid comparison with gauge data from the WegenerNet Feldbach (WEGN) network in southeastern Austria. As the WEGN data are independent of the IMERG gauge adjustment process, we could analyze the IMERG estimates across its three different runs. Our results show the effects of additional retrieval processes on the final rainfall estimates, and consequently provide IMERG accuracy information for data users.
Barbara Angerer, Florian Ladstädter, Barbara Scherllin-Pirscher, Marc Schwärz, Andrea K. Steiner, Ulrich Foelsche, and Gottfried Kirchengast
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 4845–4863, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-4845-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-4845-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
We present a detailed analysis of the latest Wegener Center GPS radio occultation reprocessing (OPSv5.6) output. Knowledge of differences in data quality, as well as of data consistency, is essential when combining data from different missions to a long-term climate record. We compare quality aspects of the various processed satellite missions and present satellite-dependent variations. Temperature data from various satellites are found to be highly consistent within 8 to 25 km.
Riccardo Biondi, Andrea Steiner, Gottfried Kirchengast, Hugues Brenot, and Therese Rieckh
Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2015-974, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2015-974, 2016
Revised manuscript not accepted
Short summary
Short summary
Cloud structure and cloud top height are key parameters for the monitoring of volcanic cloud movement and for characterizing eruptive processes and understanding the impact on short-term climate variability.
We have studied the eruption of Nabro volcano, which has been recognized as the largest stratospheric sulfur injection since Pinatubo (1991) and we have found a clear warming signature after the eruption of Nabro persisting for a few months.
Y. Li, G. Kirchengast, B. Scherllin-Pirscher, R. Norman, Y. B. Yuan, J. Fritzer, M. Schwaerz, and K. Zhang
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 3447–3465, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-3447-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-3447-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
We introduce a new dynamic statistical optimization algorithm to initialize ionosphere-corrected bending angles of Global Navigation Satellite System-based radio occultation measurements. The new algorithm is evaluated against the OPSv5.6 algorithm developed by the Wegener Center using both simulated and real observed data. It is found that the algorithm can significantly reduce the random errors of optimized bending angles. The retrieved refractivity and temperature profiles are also benefited.
V. Proschek, G. Kirchengast, S. Schweitzer, J. S. A. Brooke, P. F. Bernath, C. B. Thomas, J.-G. Wang, K. A. Tereszchuk, G. González Abad, R. J. Hargreaves, C. A. Beale, J. J. Harrison, P. A. Martin, V. L. Kasyutich, C. Gerbig, O. Kolle, and A. Loescher
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 3315–3336, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-3315-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-3315-2015, 2015
C. L. Liu, G. Kirchengast, K. Zhang, R. Norman, Y. Li, S. C. Zhang, J. Fritzer, M. Schwaerz, S. Q. Wu, and Z. X. Tan
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 2999–3019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-2999-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-2999-2015, 2015
A. Plach, V. Proschek, and G. Kirchengast
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 2813–2825, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-2813-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-2813-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
This paper discusses simulation results of a newly developed line-of-sight wind retrieval algorithm expanding an existing simulation framework that includes the retrieval of thermodynamic variables and greenhouse gases in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere region. The underlying mission concept further develops the radio occultation technique (i.e. satellite remote sensing technique scanning the atmosphere with high vertical resolution) employing microwave and infrared-laser signals.
R. Biondi, A. K. Steiner, G. Kirchengast, and T. Rieckh
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 5181–5193, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-5181-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-5181-2015, 2015
F. Ladstädter, A. K. Steiner, M. Schwärz, and G. Kirchengast
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 1819–1834, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-1819-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-1819-2015, 2015
A. Kann, I. Meirold-Mautner, F. Schmid, G. Kirchengast, J. Fuchsberger, V. Meyer, L. Tüchler, and B. Bica
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 1547–1559, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-1547-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-1547-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
The paper introduces a high resolution precipitation analysis system which operates on 1 km x 1 km resolution with high frequency updates of 5 minutes. The ability of such a system to adequately assess the convective precipitation distribution is evaluated by means of an independant, high resolution station network. This dense station network allows for a thorough evaluation of the analyses under different convective situations and of the representativeness error of raingaue measurements.
T. Rieckh, B. Scherllin-Pirscher, F. Ladstädter, and U. Foelsche
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 7, 3947–3958, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-3947-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-3947-2014, 2014
Short summary
Short summary
Radio Occultation (RO) observations featuring high vertical resolution, global availability, and high accuracy were used to investigate global characteristics of the lapse rate tropopause. Climatological tropopause characteristics for the
RO record from 2001 to 2013 extend previous studies on tropopause structure and its temporal variability. Latitudinal and longitudinal variations as well as the annual cycle and inter-annual variability were analyzed for the tropopause altitude and temperature.
J. Danzer, U. Foelsche, B. Scherllin-Pirscher, and M. Schwärz
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 7, 2883–2896, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-2883-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-2883-2014, 2014
A. K. Steiner, D. Hunt, S.-P. Ho, G. Kirchengast, A. J. Mannucci, B. Scherllin-Pirscher, H. Gleisner, A. von Engeln, T. Schmidt, C. Ao, S. S. Leroy, E. R. Kursinski, U. Foelsche, M. Gorbunov, S. Heise, Y.-H. Kuo, K. B. Lauritsen, C. Marquardt, C. Rocken, W. Schreiner, S. Sokolovskiy, S. Syndergaard, and J. Wickert
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 1469–1484, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-1469-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-1469-2013, 2013
Related subject area
Subject: Others (Wind, Precipitation, Temperature, etc.) | Technique: Remote Sensing | Topic: Data Processing and Information Retrieval
Combining commercial microwave links and weather radar for classification of dry snow and rainfall
Improved consistency in solar-induced fluorescence retrievals from GOME-2A with the SIFTER v3 algorithm
An information content approach to diagnosing and improving CLIMCAPS retrieval consistency across instruments and satellites
Characterizing urban planetary boundary layer dynamics using 3-year Doppler wind lidar measurements in a western Yangtze River Delta city, China
Radar-based high-resolution ensemble precipitation analyses over the French Alps
Gravity waves above the northern Atlantic and Europe during streamer events using Aeolus
Observations of tall-building wakes using a scanning Doppler lidar
A new method to retrieve relative humidity profiles from a synergy of Raman lidar, microwave radiometer and satellite
Mid-Atlantic nocturnal low-level jet characteristics: a machine learning analysis of radar wind profiles
Mitigating radome-induced bias in X-band weather radar polarimetric moments using an adaptive discrete Fourier transform algorithm
GNSS-RO residual ionospheric error (RIE): a new method and assessment
Best Estimate of the Planetary Boundary Layer Height from Multiple Remote Sensing Measurements
Benchmarking KDP in rainfall: a quantitative assessment of estimation algorithms using C-band weather radar observations
Comparative experimental validation of microwave hyperspectral atmospheric soundings in clear-sky conditions
Propagating Information Content: An Example with Advection
Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation climatologies mapped by machine learning and Bayesian interpolation
Use of commercial microwave links as scintillometers: potential and limitations towards evaporation estimation
Determination of low-level temperature profiles from microwave radiometer observations during rain
Aeolus lidar surface return (LSR) at 355 nm as a new Aeolus Level-2A product
Sampling the diurnal and annual cycles of the Earth's energy imbalance with constellations of satellite-borne radiometers
Retrieval of top-of-atmosphere fluxes from combined EarthCARE lidar, imager, and broadband radiometer observations: the BMA-FLX product
Analysis of the measurement uncertainty for a 3D wind lidar
Improving solution availability and temporal consistency of an optimal-estimation physical retrieval for ground-based thermodynamic boundary layer profiling
Reconstruction of 3D precipitation measurements from FY-3G MWRI-RM imaging and sounding channels
An improved geolocation methodology for spaceborne radar and lidar systems
Combining low- and high-frequency microwave radiometer measurements from the MOSAiC expedition for enhanced water vapour products
An LES Exploration of the Assumptions used in Retrieving Entrainment from a Mixing Diagram Approach with Ground-Based Remote Sensors
HAMSTER: Hyperspectral Albedo Maps dataset with high Spatial and TEmporal Resolution
TanSat-2: a new satellite for mapping solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence at both red and far-red bands with high spatio-temporal resolution
Global-scale gravity wave analysis methodology for the ESA Earth Explorer 11 candidate CAIRT
Evolution of Wind Field in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer with using of Multiple Sources Observations during the Transit of Super Typhoon Doksuri (2305)
Retrieval of pseudo-BRDF-adjusted surface reflectance at 440 nm from the Geostationary Environmental Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS)
Drop size distribution retrieval using dual-polarization radar at C-band and S-band
Thermal tides in the middle atmosphere at mid-latitudes measured with a ground-based microwave radiometer
Global sensitivity analysis of simulated remote sensing polarimetric observations over snow
Improving the Gaussianity of radar reflectivity departures between observations and simulations using symmetric rain rates
On the temperature stability requirements of free-running Nd:YAG lasers for atmospheric temperature profiling through the rotational Raman technique
Limitations in wavelet analysis of non-stationary atmospheric gravity wave signatures in temperature profiles
A new non-linearity correction method for the spectrum from the Geostationary Inferometric Infrared Sounder on board Fengyun-4 satellites and its preliminary assessments
Observing atmospheric rivers using multi-GNSS airborne radio occultation: system description and data evaluation
Determination of high-precision tropospheric delays using crowdsourced smartphone GNSS data
Unfiltering of the EarthCARE Broadband Radiometer (BBR) observations: the BM-RAD product
Variance estimations in the presence of intermittent interference and their applications to incoherent scatter radar signal processing
A clustering-based method for identifying and tracking squall lines
A multi-instrument fuzzy logic boundary-layer-top detection algorithm
Sensitivity of thermodynamic profiles retrieved from ground-based microwave and infrared observations to additional input data from active remote sensing instruments and numerical weather prediction models
Scale separation for gravity wave analysis from 3D temperature observations in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region
Estimating the refractivity bias of FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC-2 Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation in the deep troposphere
Observed impact of the GNSS clock data rate on Radio Occultation bending angles for Sentinel-6A and COSMIC-2
High Spectral Resolution Lidar – generation 2 (HSRL-2) retrievals of ocean surface wind speed: methodology and evaluation
Erlend Øydvin, Renaud Gaban, Jafet Andersson, Remco (C. Z.) van de Beek, Mareile Astrid Wolff, Nils-Otto Kitterød, Christian Chwala, and Vegard Nilsen
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 2279–2293, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-2279-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-2279-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
We present a novel method for classifying rain and snow by combining data from commercial microwave links (CMLs) with weather radar. We compare this to a reference method using dew point temperature for precipitation type classification. Evaluations with nearby disdrometers show that CMLs improve the classification of dry snow and rainfall, outperforming the reference method.
Juliëtte C. S. Anema, K. Folkert Boersma, Lieuwe G. Tilstra, Olaf N. E. Tuinder, and Willem W. Verstraeten
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 1961–1979, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1961-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1961-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Long-term records of plant fluorescence offer vital insights into changing vegetation activity. The GOME-2A sensor provides extensive global observations but suffers from calibration and instrument degradation, which affects data consistency. This study presents the SIFTER v3 algorithm, which effectively resolves these issues and includes other improvements, resulting in robust, accurate, and consistent GOME-2A fluorescence measurements from 2007 to 2017.
Nadia Smith and Christopher D. Barnet
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 1823–1839, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1823-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1823-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
CLIMCAPS extends the Aqua AIRS+AMSU record with retrievals from CrIS+ATMS on Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) and Joint Polar Satellite System series (JPSS-1 to JPSS-4). With “continuous”, we mean a data record that is consistent in its characterization of natural variation despite changes in source instrumentation. Here we investigate how sounding continuity can improve across the full CLIMCAPS record (2002 to the present day), spanning multiple instruments and satellites.
Tianwen Wei, Mengya Wang, Kenan Wu, Jinlong Yuan, Haiyun Xia, and Simone Lolli
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 1841–1857, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1841-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1841-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This study analyzes three years of wind lidar measurements to explore the dynamics of the urban planetary boundary layer in Hefei, China. Results reveal that nocturnal low-level jets are most frequent in spring and intensify in summer, significantly enhancing turbulence and shear near the surface, particularly at night. Additionally, cloud cover raises the mixing layer height by approximately 100 m at night due to the greenhouse effect but reduces it by up to 200 m in the afternoon.
Matthieu Vernay, Matthieu Lafaysse, and Clotilde Augros
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 1731–1755, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1731-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1731-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of the quality of radar-based precipitation estimation in mountainous areas and presents a method to mitigate the main shortcomings identified. It then compares three different ensemble analysis methods that combine radar-based precipitation estimates with forecasts from an ensemble numerical weather prediction model.
Sabine Wüst, Lisa Küchelbacher, Franziska Trinkl, and Michael Bittner
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 1591–1607, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1591-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1591-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Information on the energy transported by atmospheric gravity waves (GWs) is crucial for improving atmosphere models. Most space-based studies report the potential energy. We use Aeolus wind data to estimate the kinetic energy (density). However, the data quality is a challenge for such analyses, as the accuracy of the data is in the range of typical GW amplitudes. We find a temporal coincidence between enhanced or breaking planetary waves and enhanced gravity wave kinetic energy density.
Natalie E. Theeuwes, Janet F. Barlow, Antti Mannisenaho, Denise Hertwig, Ewan O'Connor, and Alan Robins
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 1355–1371, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1355-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1355-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
A Doppler lidar was placed in a highly built-up area in London to measure wakes from tall buildings during a period of 1 year. We were able to detect wakes and assess their dependence on wind speed, wind direction, and atmospheric stability.
Chengli Ji, Qiankai Jin, Feilong Li, Yuyang Liu, Zhicheng Wang, Jiajia Mao, Xiaoyu Ren, Yan Xiang, Wanlin Jian, Peitao Zhao, and Zhenyi Chen
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1171, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1171, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This study presents the humidity measurements with a synergetic algorithm combining Raman lidar, MVR, and satellite. The results from 47 sites in China show the best correlation over 0.9 concerning the radiosonde measurements. It validates the RH accuracy with various data integrations. Three representative sites present the different seasonal characteristics indicating the geographic and height influences on the RH vertical distribution.
Maurice Roots, John T. Sullivan, and Belay Demoz
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 1269–1282, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1269-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1269-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This paper presents a supervised-machine-learning approach for the automatic isolation of nocturnal low-level jets (NLLJs) using observations from a radar wind profiler. This analysis isolated 90 southwesterly NLLJs observed from May to September 2017–2021, highlighting key features in the evolution and morphology of the mid-Atlantic NLLJ.
Padmanabhan Thiruvengadam, Guillaume Lesage, Ambinintsoa Volatiana Ramanamahefa, and Joël Van Baelen
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 1185–1191, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1185-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1185-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This study explores how the joints in a weather radar's protective cover affect its measurements. We developed a new method to correct these errors, improving the accuracy of the radar's data. Our method was tested during an intense cyclone on Réunion Island, demonstrating significant improvements in data accuracy. This research is crucial for enhancing weather predictions and understanding, particularly in challenging terrains.
Dong L. Wu, Valery A. Yudin, Kyu-Myong Kim, Mohar Chattopadhyay, Lawrence Coy, Ruth S. Lieberman, C. C. Jude H. Salinas, Jae N. Lee, Jie Gong, and Guiping Liu
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 843–863, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-843-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-843-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Global Navigation Satellite System radio occultation data help monitor climate and weather prediction but are affected by residual ionospheric errors (RIEs). A new excess-phase-gradient method detects and corrects RIEs, showing both positive and negative values, varying by latitude, time, and solar activity. Tests show that RIE impacts polar stratosphere temperatures in models, with differences up to 3–4 K. This highlights the need for RIE correction to improve the accuracy of data assimilation.
Damao Zhang, Jennifer Comstock, Chitra Sivaraman, Kefei Mo, Raghavendra Krishnamurthy, Jingjing Tian, Tianning Su, Zhanqing Li, and Natalia Roldán-Henao
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3959, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3959, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Planetary boundary layer height (PBLHT) is an important parameter in atmospheric process studies and numerical model simulations. We use machine learning methods to produce a best-estimate planetary boundary layer height (PBLHT-BE-ML) by integrating four PBLHT estimates derived from remote sensing measurements. We demonstrated that PBLHT-BE-ML greatly improved the comparisons against sounding-derived PBLHT.
Miguel Aldana, Seppo Pulkkinen, Annakaisa von Lerber, Matthew R. Kumjian, and Dmitri Moisseev
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 793–816, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-793-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-793-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Accurate KDP estimates are crucial in radar-based applications. We quantify the uncertainties of several publicly available KDP estimation methods for multiple rainfall intensities. We use C-band weather radar observations and employed a self-consistency KDP, estimated from reflectivity and differential reflectivity, as a framework for the examination. Our study provides guidance for the performance, uncertainties, and optimisation of the methods, focusing mainly on accuracy and robustness.
Lei Liu, Natalia Bliankinshtein, Yi Huang, John R. Gyakum, Philip M. Gabriel, Shiqi Xu, and Mengistu Wolde
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 471–485, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-471-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-471-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This study evaluates and compares a new microwave hyperspectrometer with an infrared hyperspectrometer for clear-sky temperature and water vapor retrievals. The analysis reveals that the information content of the infrared hyperspectrometer exceeds that of the microwave hyperspectrometer and provides higher vertical resolution in ground-based zenith measurements. Leveraging the ground–airborne synergy between the two instruments yielded optimal sounding results.
David D. Turner, Maria P. Cadeddu, Julia Simonson, and Timothy J. Wagner
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4124, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4124, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
When deriving a geophysical variable from remote sensors, the uncertainty and information content are critical. The latter quantify specifies what fraction of a real perturbation would be observed in the derived variable. This paper outlines, for the first time, a methodology for propagating the information content from multiple remote sensors into a derived product, using horizontal advection as an example.
Endrit Shehaj, Stephen Leroy, Kerri Cahoy, Alain Geiger, Laura Crocetti, Gregor Moeller, Benedikt Soja, and Markus Rothacher
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 57–72, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-57-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-57-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This work investigates whether machine learning (ML) can offer an alternative to existing methods to map radio occultation (RO) products, allowing the extraction of information not visible in direct observations. ML can further improve the results of Bayesian interpolation, a state-of-the-art method to map RO observations. The results display improvements in horizontal and temporal domains, at heights ranging from the planetary boundary layer up to the lower stratosphere, and for all seasons.
Luuk D. van der Valk, Oscar K. Hartogensis, Miriam Coenders-Gerrits, Rolf W. Hut, Bas Walraven, and Remko Uijlenhoet
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2974, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2974, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Commercial microwave links (CMLs), part of mobile phone networks, transmit comparable signals as instruments specially designed to estimate evaporation. Therefore, we investigate if CMLs could be used to estimate evaporation, even though they have not been designed for this purpose. Our results illustrate the potential of using CMLs to estimate evaporation, especially given their global coverage, but also outline some major drawbacks, often a consequence of unfavourable design choices for CMLs.
Andreas Foth, Moritz Lochmann, Pablo Saavedra Garfias, and Heike Kalesse-Los
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 7169–7181, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-7169-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-7169-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Microwave radiometers are usually not able to provide atmospheric quantities such as temperature profiles during rain. We present a method based on a selection of specific frequencies and elevation angles from microwave radiometer observations. A comparison with a numerical weather prediction model shows the presented method allows low-level temperature profiles during rain to be resolved, with rain rates of up to 2.5 mm h−1,, which was not possible before with state-of-the-art retrievals.
Lev D. Labzovskii, Gerd-Jan van Zadelhoff, David P. Donovan, Jos de Kloe, L. Gijsbert Tilstra, Ad Stoffelen, Damien Josset, and Piet Stammes
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 7183–7208, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-7183-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-7183-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The Atmospheric Laser Doppler Instrument (ALADIN) on the Aeolus satellite was the first of its kind to measure high-resolution vertical profiles of aerosols and cloud properties from space. We present an algorithm that produces Aeolus lidar surface returns (LSRs), containing useful information for measuring UV reflectivity. Aeolus LSRs matched well with existing UV reflectivity data from other satellites, like GOME-2 and TROPOMI, and demonstrated excellent sensitivity to modeled snow cover.
Thomas Hocking, Thorsten Mauritsen, and Linda Megner
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 7077–7095, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-7077-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-7077-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The imbalance between the energy the Earth absorbs from the Sun and the energy the Earth emits back into space gives rise to climate change, but measuring the small imbalance is challenging. We simulate satellites in various orbits to investigate how well they sample the imbalance and find that the best option is to combine at least two satellites that see complementary parts of the Earth and cover the daily and annual cycles. This information is useful when planning future satellite missions.
Almudena Velázquez Blázquez, Carlos Domenech, Edward Baudrez, Nicolas Clerbaux, Carla Salas Molar, and Nils Madenach
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 7007–7026, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-7007-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-7007-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This paper focuses on the BMA-FLX processor, in which thermal and solar top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes are obtained from longwave and shortwave radiances measured along track by the EarthCARE Broadband Radiometer (BBR). The BBR measurements, at three fixed viewing angles (fore, nadir, aft), are co-registered either at the surface or at a reference level. A combined flux from the three BRR views is obtained. The algorithm has been successfully validated against test scenes.
Wolf Knöller, Gholamhossein Bagheri, Philipp von Olshausen, and Michael Wilczek
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 6913–6931, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-6913-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-6913-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Three-dimensional (3D) wind velocity measurements are of major importance for the characterization of atmospheric turbulence. This paper presents a detailed study of the measurement uncertainty of a three-beam wind lidar designed for mounting on airborne platforms. Considering the geometrical constraints, the analysis provides quantitative estimates for the measurement uncertainty of all components of the 3D wind vector. As a result, we propose optimized post-processing for error reduction.
Bianca Adler, David D. Turner, Laura Bianco, Irina V. Djalalova, Timothy Myers, and James M. Wilczak
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 6603–6624, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-6603-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-6603-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Continuous profile observations of temperature and humidity in the lowest part of the atmosphere are essential for the evaluation of numerical weather prediction models and data assimilation for better weather forecasts. Such profiles can be retrieved from passive ground-based remote sensing instruments like infrared spectrometers and microwave radiometers. In this study, we describe three recent modifications to the retrieval framework TROPoe for improved temperature and humidity profiles.
Yunfan Yang, Wei Han, Haofei Sun, Jun Li, Jiapeng Yan, and Zhiqiu Gao
Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2024-175, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2024-175, 2024
Revised manuscript accepted for AMT
Short summary
Short summary
Our research improves satellite-based precipitation monitoring by using deep learning to reconstruct radar observations from passive microwave radiances. Active radar is costly, so we focus on a more accessible approach. Using data from the FengYun-3G satellite, we successfully tracked severe weather like Typhoon Khanun and heavy rainfall in Beijing in 2023. This method enhances global precipitation data and helps better understand extreme weather.
Bernat Puigdomènech Treserras and Pavlos Kollias
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 6301–6314, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-6301-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-6301-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The paper presents a comprehensive approach to improve the geolocation accuracy of spaceborne radar and lidar systems, crucial for the successful interpretation of data from the upcoming EarthCARE mission. The paper details the technical background of the presented methods and various examples of geolocation analyses, including a short period of CloudSat observations when the star tracker was not operating properly and lifetime statistics from the CloudSat and CALIPSO missions.
Andreas Walbröl, Hannes J. Griesche, Mario Mech, Susanne Crewell, and Kerstin Ebell
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 6223–6245, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-6223-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-6223-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We developed retrievals of integrated water vapour (IWV), temperature profiles, and humidity profiles from ground-based passive microwave remote sensing measurements gathered during the MOSAiC expedition. We demonstrate and quantify the benefit of combining low- and high-frequency microwave radiometers to improve humidity profiling and IWV estimates by comparing the retrieved quantities to single-instrument retrievals and reference datasets (radiosondes).
Tessa E. Rosenberger, Thijs Heus, Girish N. Raghunathan, David D. Turner, Timothy J. Wagner, and Julia M. Simonson
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2894, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2894, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Entrainment is key in understanding temperature and moisture changes within the boundary layer, but it is difficult to observe using ground-based observations. This work used simulations to verify an assumption that simplifies entrainment estimations from ground-based observational data, recognizing that entrainment is the combination of the transfer of heat and moisture from above the boundary layer into it and the change in concentration of heat and moisture as boundary layer depth changes.
Giulia Roccetti, Luca Bugliaro, Felix Gödde, Claudia Emde, Ulrich Hamann, Mihail Manev, Michael Fritz Sterzik, and Cedric Wehrum
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 6025–6046, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-6025-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-6025-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The amount of sunlight reflected by the Earth’s surface (albedo) is vital for the Earth's radiative system. While satellite instruments offer detailed spatial and temporal albedo maps, they only cover seven wavelength bands. We generate albedo maps that fully span the visible and near-infrared range using a machine learning algorithm. These maps reveal how the reflectivity of different land surfaces varies throughout the year. Our dataset enhances the understanding of the Earth's energy balance.
Dianrun Zhao, Shanshan Du, Chu Zou, Longfei Tian, Meng Fan, Yulu Du, and Liangyun Liu
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3118, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3118, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The TanSat-2 satellite is designed for global carbon monitoring. It provides high-resolution, dual-band observations of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence, a key indicator of plant photosynthesis. Through simulations, we optimized the satellite's data processing and found it can retrieve this fluorescence with great accuracy. These findings suggest that TanSat-2 will enhance global monitoring of carbon cycles and vegetation health, offering valuable insights for climate change research.
Sebastian Rhode, Peter Preusse, Jörn Ungermann, Inna Polichtchouk, Kaoru Sato, Shingo Watanabe, Manfred Ern, Karlheinz Nogai, Björn-Martin Sinnhuber, and Martin Riese
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 5785–5819, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5785-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5785-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We investigate the capabilities of a proposed satellite mission, CAIRT, for observing gravity waves throughout the middle atmosphere and present the necessary methodology for in-depth wave analysis. Our findings suggest that such a satellite mission is highly capable of resolving individual wave parameters and could give new insights into the role of gravity waves in general atmospheric circulation and atmospheric processes.
Xiaoye Wang, Jing Xu, Songhua Wu, Qichao Wang, Guangyao Dai, Peizhi Zhu, Zhizhong Su, Sai Chen, Xiaomeng Shi, and Mengqi Fan
Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2024-156, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2024-156, 2024
Revised manuscript accepted for AMT
Short summary
Short summary
In this paper, we proposed a data fusion method to obtain the no-blind zone wind speed profiles covering the whole Atmospheric Boundary Layer based on the joint measurements of coherent Doppler lidar (CDL), radar wind profiler (RWP) and automatic weather station (AWS). Since above instruments are widely deployed in China, we believe this method has broad application prospects on the improvement of the boundary layer parameterization scheme in numerical forecast models.
Suyoung Sim, Sungwon Choi, Daeseong Jung, Jongho Woo, Nayeon Kim, Sungwoo Park, Honghee Kim, Ukkyo Jeong, Hyunkee Hong, and Kyung-Soo Han
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 5601–5618, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5601-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5601-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study evaluates the use of background surface reflectance (BSR) derived from a semi-empirical bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) model based on GEMS satellite images. Analysis shows that BSR provides improved accuracy and stability compared to Lambertian-equivalent reflectivity (LER). These results indicate that BSR can significantly enhance climate analysis and air quality monitoring, making it a promising tool for accurate environmental satellite applications.
Daniel Durbin, Yadong Wang, and Pao-Liang Chang
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 5397–5411, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5397-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5397-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
A method for determining drop size distributions (DSDs) for rain using radar measurements from two frequencies at two polarizations is presented. Following some preprocessing and quality control, radar measurements are incorporated into a model that uses swarm intelligence to seek the most suitable DSD to produce the input measurements.
Witali Krochin, Axel Murk, and Gunter Stober
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 5015–5028, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5015-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5015-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Atmospheric tides are global-scale oscillations with periods of a fraction of a day. Their observation in the middle atmosphere is challenging and rare, as it requires continuous measurements with a high temporal resolution. In this paper, temperature time series of a ground-based microwave radiometer were analyzed with a spectral filter to derive thermal tide amplitudes and phases in an altitude range of 25–50 km at the geographical locations of Payerne and Bern (Switzerland).
Matteo Ottaviani, Gabriel Harris Myers, and Nan Chen
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 4737–4756, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4737-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4737-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We analyze simulated polarization observations over snow to investigate the capabilities of remote sensing to determine surface and atmospheric properties in snow-covered regions. Polarization measurements are demonstrated to aid in the determination of snow grain shape, ice crystal roughness, and the vertical distribution of impurities in the snow–atmosphere system, data that are critical for estimating snow albedo for use in climate models.
Yudong Gao, Lidou Huyan, Zheng Wu, and Bojun Liu
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 4675–4686, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4675-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4675-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
A symmetric error model built by symmetric rain rates handles the non-Gaussian error structure of the reflectivity error. The accuracy and linearization of rain rates can further improve the Gaussianity.
José Alex Zenteno-Hernández, Adolfo Comerón, Federico Dios, Alejandro Rodríguez-Gómez, Constantino Muñoz-Porcar, Michaël Sicard, Noemi Franco, Andreas Behrendt, and Paolo Di Girolamo
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 4687–4694, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4687-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4687-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We study how the spectral characteristics of a solid-state laser in an atmospheric temperature profiling lidar using the Raman technique impact the temperature retrieval accuracy. We find that the spectral widening, with respect to a seeded laser, has virtually no impact, while crystal-rod temperature variations in the laser must be kept within a range of 1 K for the uncertainty in the atmospheric temperature below 1 K. The study is carried out through spectroscopy simulations.
Robert Reichert, Natalie Kaifler, and Bernd Kaifler
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 4659–4673, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4659-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4659-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Imagine you want to determine how quickly the pitch of a passing ambulance’s siren changes. If the vehicle is traveling slowly, the pitch changes only slightly, but if it is traveling fast, the pitch also changes rapidly. In a similar way, the wind in the middle atmosphere modulates the wavelength of atmospheric gravity waves. We have investigated the question of how strong the maximum wind may be so that the change in wavelength can still be determined with the help of wavelet transformation.
Qiang Guo, Yuning Liu, Xin Wang, and Wen Hui
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 4613–4627, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4613-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4613-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Non-linearity (NL) correction is a critical procedure to guarantee that the calibration accuracy of a spaceborne sensor approaches a reasonable level. Different from the classical method, a new NL correction method for a spaceborne Fourier transform spectrometer is proposed. To overcome the inaccurate linear coefficient from two-point calibration influencing NL correction, an iteration algorithm is established that is suitable for NL correction of both infrared and microwave sensors.
Bing Cao, Jennifer S. Haase, Michael J. Murphy Jr., and Anna M. Wilson
Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2024-119, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2024-119, 2024
Revised manuscript accepted for AMT
Short summary
Short summary
This paper describes an Airborne Radio Occultation (ARO) observation system installed on reconnaissance aircraft that uses GPS signal refraction in the atmosphere to retrieve information about the temperature and moisture in the storm environment as far away as 400 km surrounding the flight track. The characteristics and quality of 1700 ARO refractivity profiles were assessed. These observations are collected to help understand atmospheric rivers and improve their forecasting.
Yuanxin Pan, Grzegorz Kłopotek, Laura Crocetti, Rudi Weinacker, Tobias Sturn, Linda See, Galina Dick, Gregor Möller, Markus Rothacher, Ian McCallum, Vicente Navarro, and Benedikt Soja
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 4303–4316, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4303-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4303-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Crowdsourced smartphone GNSS data were processed with a dedicated data processing pipeline and could produce millimeter-level accurate estimates of zenith total delay (ZTD) – a critical atmospheric variable. This breakthrough not only demonstrates the feasibility of using ubiquitous devices for high-precision atmospheric monitoring but also underscores the potential for a global, cost-effective tropospheric monitoring network.
Almudena Velázquez Blázquez, Edward Baudrez, Nicolas Clerbaux, and Carlos Domenech
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 4245–4256, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4245-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4245-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The Broadband Radiometer measures shortwave and total-wave radiances filtered by the spectral response of the instrument. To obtain unfiltered solar and thermal radiances, the effect of the spectral response needs to be corrected for, done within the BM-RAD processor. Errors in the unfiltering are propagated into fluxes; thus, accurate unfiltering is required for their proper estimation (within BMA-FLX). Unfiltering errors are estimated to be <0.5 % for the shortwave and <0.1 % for the longwave.
Qihou Zhou, Yanlin Li, and Yun Gong
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 4197–4209, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4197-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4197-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We discuss several robust estimators to compute the variance of a normally distributed random variable to deal with interference. Compared to rank-based estimators, the methods based on the geometric mean are more accurate and are computationally more efficient. We apply three robust estimators to incoherent scatter power and velocity processing, along with the traditional sample mean estimator. The best estimator is a hybrid estimator that combines the sample mean and a robust estimator.
Zhao Shi, Yuxiang Wen, and Jianxin He
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 4121–4135, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4121-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4121-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The squall line is a type of convective system. Squall lines are often associated with damaging weather, so identifying and tracking squall lines plays an important role in early meteorological disaster warnings. A clustering-based method is proposed in this article. It can identify the squall lines within the radar scanning range with an accuracy rate of 95.93 %. It can also provide the three-dimensional structure and movement tracking results for each squall line.
Elizabeth N. Smith and Jacob T. Carlin
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 4087–4107, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4087-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4087-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Boundary-layer height observations remain sparse in time and space. In this study we create a new fuzzy logic method for synergistically combining boundary-layer height estimates from a suite of instruments. These estimates generally compare well to those from radiosondes; plus, the approach offers near-continuous estimates through the entire diurnal cycle. Suspected reasons for discrepancies are discussed. The code for the newly presented fuzzy logic method is provided for the community to use.
Laura Bianco, Bianca Adler, Ludovic Bariteau, Irina V. Djalalova, Timothy Myers, Sergio Pezoa, David D. Turner, and James M. Wilczak
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 3933–3948, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-3933-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-3933-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The Tropospheric Remotely Observed Profiling via Optimal Estimation physical retrieval is used to retrieve temperature and humidity profiles from various combinations of passive and active remote sensing instruments, surface platforms, and numerical weather prediction models. The retrieved profiles are assessed against collocated radiosonde in non-cloudy conditions to assess the sensitivity of the retrievals to different input combinations. Case studies with cloudy conditions are also inspected.
Björn Linder, Peter Preusse, Qiuyu Chen, Ole Martin Christensen, Lukas Krasauskas, Linda Megner, Manfred Ern, and Jörg Gumbel
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 3829–3841, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-3829-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-3829-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The Swedish research satellite MATS (Mesospheric Airglow/Aerosol Tomography and Spectroscopy) is designed to study atmospheric waves in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. These waves perturb the temperature field, and thus, by observing three-dimensional temperature fluctuations, their properties can be quantified. This pre-study uses synthetic MATS data generated from a general circulation model to investigate how well wave properties can be retrieved.
Gia Huan Pham, Shu-Chih Yang, Chih-Chien Chang, Shu-Ya Chen, and Cheng Yung Huang
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 3605–3623, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-3605-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-3605-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This research examines the characteristics of low-level GNSS radio occultation (RO) refractivity bias over ocean and land and its dependency on the RO retrieval uncertainty, atmospheric temperature, and moisture. We propose methods for estimating the region-dependent refractivity bias. Our methods can be applied to calibrate the refractivity bias under different atmospheric conditions and thus improve the applications of the GNSS RO data in the deep troposphere.
Sebastiano Padovan, Axel Von Engeln, Saverio Paolella, Yago Andres, Chad R. Galley, Riccardo Notarpietro, Veronica Rivas Boscán, Francisco Sancho, Francisco Martin Alemany, Nicolas Morew, and Christian Marquardt
Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2024-80, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2024-80, 2024
Revised manuscript accepted for AMT
Short summary
Short summary
Radio Occultation (RO) measurements are an important contribution to numerical weather predictions and long-term climate studies. Using more than a hundred thousand occultations recorded by instruments onboard the Sentinel-6A and Cosmic-2 satellites, this work studies the effects of the clock data rate of the Global Navigation Satellite System on the RO data quality. GLONASS occultations benefit of high-rate clock data (1 second), GPS occultation have high quality already at 30 seconds.
Sanja Dmitrovic, Johnathan W. Hair, Brian L. Collister, Ewan Crosbie, Marta A. Fenn, Richard A. Ferrare, David B. Harper, Chris A. Hostetler, Yongxiang Hu, John A. Reagan, Claire E. Robinson, Shane T. Seaman, Taylor J. Shingler, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Holger Vömel, Xubin Zeng, and Armin Sorooshian
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 3515–3532, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-3515-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-3515-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study introduces and evaluates a new ocean surface wind speed product from the NASA Langley Research Center (LARC) airborne High-Spectral-Resolution Lidar – Generation 2 (HSRL-2) during the NASA ACTIVATE mission. We show that HSRL-2 surface wind speed data are accurate when compared to ground-truth dropsonde measurements. Therefore, the HSRL-2 instrument is able obtain accurate, high-resolution surface wind speed data in airborne field campaigns.
Cited articles
Andrews, D. G., Holton, J. G., and Leovy, C.B.: Middle Atmospheres dynamics, Academic Press, San Diego, California, 489 pp., 1987.
Angerer, B., Ladstädter, F., Scherllin-Pirscher, B., Schwärz, M., Steiner, A. K., Foelsche, U., and Kirchengast, G.: Quality aspects of the Wegener Center multi-satellite GPS radio occultation record OPSv5.6, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 4845–4863, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-4845-2017, 2017.
Anthes, R. A.: Exploring Earth's atmosphere with radio occultation: contributions to weather, climate and space weather, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 4, 1077–1103, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-4-1077-2011, 2011.
Baldwin, M. P. and Dunkerton, T. J.: Stratospheric harbingers of anomalous weather regimes, Science, 294, 581–584, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1063315, 2001.
Biondi, R., Steiner, A. K., Kirchengast, G., and Rieckh, T.: Characterization of thermal structure and conditions for overshooting of tropical and extratropical cyclones with GPS radio occultation, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 5181–5193, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-5181-2015, 2015.
Biondi, R., Steiner, A. K., Kirchengast, G., Brenot, H., and Rieckh, T.: Supporting the detection and monitoring of volcanic clouds: a promising new application of global navigation satellite system radio occultation, Adv. Space. Res., 60, 2707–2722 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2017.06.039, 2017.
Bosilovich M.G., Kennedy J., Dee D., Allan R., O'Neill A.: On the
Reprocessing and Reanalysis of Observations for Climate in: Climate Science for Serving Society, edited by: Asrar, G. and
Hurrell, J., Springer, Dordrecht, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6692-1_3, 2013.
Brunner, L., Steiner, A. K., Scherllin-Pirscher, B., and Jury, M. W.: Exploring atmospheric blocking with GPS radio occultation observations, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 4593–4604, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-4593-2016, 2016.
Butler, A. H. and Gerber, E. P.: Optimizing the definition of a sudden stratospheric warming, J. Climate, 31, 2337–2344, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0648.1, 2018.
Butler, A. H., Seidel, D. J., Hardiman, S. C., Butchart, N., Birner, T., and Match, A.: Defining sudden stratospheric warmings, B. Am. Meteor. Soc., 96, 1913–1928, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00173.1, 2015.
Charlton, A. J. and Polvani, L. M.: A new look at stratospheric sudden warmings. Part I: Climatology and modeling benchmarks, J. Climate., 20, 449–469, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI3996.1, 2007.
Christiansen, B.: Downward propagation of zonal mean zonal wind anomalies from the stratosphere to the troposphere: Model and reanalysis, J. Geophys. Res., 106, 27307–27322, https://doi.org/10.1029/2000JD000214, 2001.
Dhaka, S. K., Kumar, V., Choudhary, R. K., Ho, S. P., Takahashi, M., and Yoden, S.: Indications of a strong dynamical coupling between the polar and tropical regions during the sudden stratospheric warming event January 2009, based on COSMIC/FORMASAT-3 satellite temperature data, Atmos. Res., 166, 60–69, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2015.06.008, 2015.
Eguchi, N. and Kodera, K.: Impacts of stratospheric sudden warming event on tropical clouds and moisture fields in the TTL: a case study, Scientific online letters on the atmosphere: Sola, 6, 137–140, https://doi.org/10.2151/sola.2010-035, 2010.
Foelsche, U., Scherllin-Pirscher, B., Ladstädter, F., Steiner, A. K., and Kirchengast, G.: Refractivity and temperature climate records from multiple radio occultation satellites consistent within 0.05 %, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 4, 2007–2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-4-2007-2011, 2011.
Hajj, G. A., Kursinski, E. R., Romans, L. J., Bertiger, W. I., and Leroy, S. S.: A technical description of atmospheric sounding by GPS occultation, J. Atmos. Sol. Terr. Phys., 64, 451–469, https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6826(01)00114-6, 2002.
Harada, Y., Goto, A., Hasegawa, H., Fujikawa, N., Naoe, H., and Hirooka, T.: A Major stratospheric sudden warming event in January 2009, J. Atmos. Sci., 67, 2052–2069, https://doi.org/10.1175/2009JAS3320.1, 2010.
Hersbach, H., Bell, W., Berrisford, P., Horányi, A., Muñoz-Sabater, J., Nicolas, J., Radu, R., Schepers., D, Simmons, A., Soci, C., and Dee, D.: Global reanalysis: goodbye ERA-Interim, hello ERA5, ECMWF Newsl., 159, 17–24, https://doi.org/10.21957/vf291hehd7, 2019.
Hersbach, H., Bell, B., Berrisford, P., Hirahara, S., Horányi1, A., Muñoz-Sabater, J., Nicolas, J., Peubey, C., Radu, R., Schepers, D., Simmons, A., Soci, C., Abdalla, S., Abellan, X., Balsamo, G., Bechtold, P., Biavati, G., Bidlot, J., Bonavita, M., De Chiara1, G., Dahlgren, P., Dee,
D., Diamantakis, M., Dragani, R., Flemming, J., Forbes, R., Fuentes, M.,
Geer, A., Haimberger, L., Healy, S., Hogan1,R.J., Hólm, E.,
Janisková, M., Keeley, S., Laloyaux, P., Lopez, P., Radnoti, G., De
Rosnay, P., Rozum, I., Vamborg, F., Villaume, S., and Thépaut. J.-N.:
The ERA5 Global Reanalysis, Q. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 146, 1999–2049, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3803, 2020.
Hitchcock, P., Shepherd, T. G., and G. L. Manney.: Statistical characterization of Arctic polar-night jet oscillation events, J. Climate, 26, 2096–2116, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00202.1, 2013.
Klingler, R.: Observing Sudden Stratospheric Warmings with Radio Occultation Data, with Focus on the Event 2009, MSc thesis, University of Graz, Graz, Austria, 2014.
Kodera, K., Eguchi, N., Lee, J.N., Kuroda, Y., and Yukimoto, S.: Sudden changes in the tropical stratospheric and tropospheric circulation during January 2009, J. Meteorol. Soc. Jpn., 89, 283–290,
https://doi.org/10.2151/jmsj.2011-308, 2011.
Kohma, M. and K. Sato.: Variability of upper tropospheric clouds in the polar region during stratospheric sudden warmings, J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 119, 10100–10113, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JD021746, 2014.
Kuroda, Y. and K. Kodera: Role of the Polar-night Jet Oscillation on the formation of the Arctic Oscillation in the Northern Hemisphere winter, J. Geophys. Res., 109, D11112, https://doi.org/10.1029/2003JD004123, 2004.
Kursinski, E. R., Hajj, G. A., Schofield, J. T., Linfield, R. P., and Hardy, K. R.: Observing Earth's atmosphere with radio occultation measurements using the Global Positioning System, J. Geophys.Res., 102, 23429–23465, https://doi.org/10.1029/97JD01569, 1997.
Labitzke, K. and Kunze, M.: On the remarkable Arctic winter in 2008/2009, J. Geophys. Res. Atmos, 114, D00I02, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JD012273, 2009.
Labitzke, K. and Naujokat, B.: The lower Arctic stratosphere in winter since 1952, SPARC Newsletter, No. 15, World Climate Research Programme SPARC Office, Zurich, Switzerland, 11–14, 2000.
Ladstädter, F., Steiner, A. K., Schwärz, M., and Kirchengast, G.: Climate intercomparison of GPS radio occultation, RS90/92 radiosondes and GRUAN from 2002 to 2013, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 1819–1834, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-1819-2015, 2015.
Limpasuvan, V., Thompson, D. W. J., and Hartmann, D. L.: The life cycle of the northern hemisphere sudden stratospheric warmings, J. Climate, 17, 2584–2596, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<2584:TLCOTN>2.0.CO;2, 2004.
Lin, J. T., Lin, C. H., Chang, L. C., Huang, H. H., Liu, J. Y., Chen, A. B., Chen, C. H., and Liu, C. H.: Observational evidence of ionospheric migrating tide modification during the 2009 stratospheric sudden warming, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L02101, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011GL050248, 2012.
Luntama, J.-P., Kirchengast, G., Borsche, M., Foelsche, U., Steiner, A., Healy, S., von Engeln, A., O'Clerigh, E., and Marquardt, C.: Prospects of the EPS GRAS mission for operational atmospheric applications, B. Am. Meteor. Soc., 89, 1863–1875, https://doi.org/10.1175/2008BAMS2399.1, 2008.
Manney, G. L., Krüger, K., Pawson, S., Minschwaner, K., Schwartz, M. J.,
Daffer, W. H., Livesey, N. J., Mlynczak, M. G., Remsberg, E. E., Russell,
J. M., and Waters, J. W.: The evolution of the stratopause during the 2006
major warming: satellite data and assimilated meteorological analyses, J.
Geophys. Res., 113, D11115, https://doi.org/10.1029/2007JD009097, 2008.
Manney, G. L., Schwartz, M. J., Kruger, K., Santee, M. L., Pawson, S., Lee, J. N., Daffer, W. H., Fuller, R. A., and Livesey, N. J.: Auramicrowave limb sounder observations of dynamics and transport during the record-breaking 2009 Arctic stratospheric major warming, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L12815, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009GL038586, 2009.
McInturff, R. M.: Stratospheric warmings: Synoptic, dynamic and
general-circulation aspects, NASA Reference Publ., USA, NASA-RP-1017, 174, 1978.
Newman, P. A., Coy, L., Kramarova, N., Nash, E. R., and Strahan, S.: The Major Stratospheric Sudden Warming of February 2018, Thursday, 21 March 2019, Vienna, Aerosol and Environmental Physics Group, Seminar talk, 2018.
Parker, W. S.: Reanalyses and observations: What's the difference? B. Am. Meteor. Soc., 97, 1565–1572, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00226.1, 2016.
Sathishkumar, S. and Sridharan, S.: Observations of 2–4 day
inertia-gravity waves from the equatorial troposphere to the F region during
the sudden stratospheric warming event of 2009, J. Geophys. Res., 116,
A12320, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JA017096, 2011.
Scherllin-Pirscher, B., Kirchengast, G., Steiner, A. K., Kuo, Y.-H., and Foelsche, U.: Quantifying uncertainty in climatological fields from GPS radio occultation: an empirical-analytical error model, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 4, 2019–2034, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-4-2019-2011, 2011a.
Scherllin-Pirscher, B., Steiner, A. K., Kirchengast, G., Kuo, Y.-H., and Foelsche, U.: Empirical analysis and modeling of errors of atmospheric profiles from GPS radio occultation, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 4, 1875–1890, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-4-1875-2011, 2011b.
Scherllin-Pirscher, B., Steiner, A. K., Kirchengast, G., Schwaerz, M., and Leroy, S. S.: The power of vertical geolocation of atmospheric profiles from GNSS radio occultation, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 122, 1595–1616, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025902, 2017.
Schreiner, W., Rocken, C., Sokolovskiy, S., Syndergaard, S. and Hunt, D.: Estimates of the precision of GPS radio occultations from the
COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 mission, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L04808,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL027557, 2007.
Schwaerz, M., Kirchengast, G., Scherllin-Pirscher, B., Schwarz, J., Ladstädter, F., and Angerer, B.: Multi-Mission Validation by Satellite Radio Occultation – Extension Project, Final Report for ESA/ESRIN No. 01/2016, WEGC, University of Graz, Graz, Austria, 2016.
Simmons, A., Soci, C., Nicolas, J., Bell, B., Berrisford, P., Dragani, R., Flemming, J., Haimberger1, L., Healy, S., Hersbach, H., Horányi, A., Inness, A., Muñoz-Sabater, J Radu, R., and Schepers, D.: Global stratospheric temperature bias and other stratospheric aspects of ERA5 and ERA5.1, ECMWF Tech., Memo., No. 859, https://doi.org/10.21957/rcxqfmg0, 2020.
Siskind, D. E., Eckermann, S. D., Coy, L., Mccormack, J. P., and Randall, C. E.: On recent interannual variability of the Arctic winter mesosphere: Implications for tracer descent, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L09806, https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GL029293, 2007.
Steiner, A. K., Kirchengast, G., Foelsche, U., Kornblueh, L., Manzini, E., and Bengtsson, L.: GNSS occultation sounding for climate monitoring, Phys. Chem. Earth (A)., 26, 113–124, https://doi.org/10.1016/S1464-1895(01)00034-5, 2001.
Steiner, A. K., Lackner, B. C., Ladstädter, F., Scherllin-Pirscher, B., Foelsche, U., and Kirchengast, G.: GPS radio occultation for climate monitoring and change detection, Radio Sci., 46, RS0D24, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010RS004614, 2011.
Steiner, A. K., Hunt, D., Ho, S.-P., Kirchengast, G., Mannucci, A. J., Scherllin-Pirscher, B., Gleisner, H., von Engeln, A., Schmidt, T., Ao, C., Leroy, S. S., Kursinski, E. R., Foelsche, U., Gorbunov, M., Heise, S., Kuo, Y.-H., Lauritsen, K. B., Marquardt, C., Rocken, C., Schreiner, W., Sokolovskiy, S., Syndergaard, S., and Wickert, J.: Quantification of structural uncertainty in climate data records from GPS radio occultation, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 1469–1484, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-1469-2013, 2013.
Steiner, A. K., Ladstädter, F., Ao, C. O., Gleisner, H., Ho, S.-P., Hunt, D., Schmidt, T., Foelsche, U., Kirchengast, G., Kuo, Y.-H., Lauritsen, K. B., Mannucci, A. J., Nielsen, J. K., Schreiner, W., Schwärz, M., Sokolovskiy, S., Syndergaard, S., and Wickert, J.: Consistency and structural uncertainty of multi-mission GPS radio occultation records, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 2547–2575, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-2547-2020, 2020.
Sun, Y., Bai, W., Liu, C., Liu, Y., Du, Q., Wang, X., Yang, G., Liao, M., Yang, Z., Zhang, X., Meng, X., Zhao, D., Xia, J., Cai, Y., and Kirchengast, G.: The FengYun-3C radio occultation sounder GNOS: a review of the mission and its early results and science applications, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 5797–5811, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5797-2018, 2018.
Taguchi, M.: Latitudinal Extension of Cooling and Upwelling Signals associated with Stratospheric Sudden Warmings, J. Meteor. Soc. Jpn., 89, 571–580, https://doi.org/10.2151/jmsj.2011-511, 2011.
Thompson, D. W. J., Baldwin, M. P., and Wallace, J. M.: Stratospheric connection to northern hemisphere wintertime weather: implications for prediction, J. Climate, 15, 1421–1428,
https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<1421:SCTNHW>2.0.CO;2,
2002.
Untch, A., Miller, M., Hortal, M., Buizza, R., and Janssen, P.: Towards a global meso-scale model: The high-resolution system T799L91 and T399L62 EPS, ECMWF Newsl., 108, 6–13, 2006.
Wang, L. and Alexander, M. J.: Gravity wave activity during stratospheric sudden warmings in the 2007–2008 Northern Hemisphere winter, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 114, D18108, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JD011867,2009.
Wickert, J., Reigber, C., Beyerle, G., König, R., Marquardt, C., Schmidt, T., Grundwaldt, L., Galas, R., Meehan, T. K., Melbourne, W. G., and Hocke, K.: Atmosphere sounding by GPS radio occultation: First results from CHAMP, Geophys. Res. Lett., 28, 32633266, https://doi.org/10.1029/2001GL013117, 2001.
Wickert, J., Beyerle, G., König, R., Heise, S., Grunwaldt, L., Michalak, G., Reigber, Ch., and Schmidt, T.: GPS radio occultation with CHAMP and GRACE: A first look at a new and promising satellite configuration for global atmospheric sounding, Ann. Geophys., 23, 653–658, https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-23-653-2005, 2005.
Yoshida, K. and Yamazaki, K.: Tropical cooling in the case of stratospheric sudden warming in January 2009: focus on the tropical tropopause layer, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 6325–6336, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-6325-2011, 2011.
Yue, X., Schreiner, W.S., Lei, J., Rocken, C., Hunt, D.C., Kuo, Y.-H. and Wan, W.: Global ionospheric response observed by COSMIC satellites during the January 2009 stratospheric sudden warming event, J. Geophys. Res., 115, A00G09, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010JA015466, 2010.
Short summary
We introduce a new method to detect and monitor sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) data at high northern latitudes and demonstrate it for the well-known Jan.–Feb. 2009 event. We found that RO data are capable of SSW monitoring. Based on our method, a SSW event can be detected and tracked, and the duration and the strength of the event can be recorded. The results are consistent with other research on the 2009 event.
We introduce a new method to detect and monitor sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events using...
