Research article 21 May 2012
Research article | 21 May 2012
Operational profiling of temperature using ground-based microwave radiometry at Payerne: prospects and challenges
U. Löhnert and O. Maier
Related subject area
Subject: Others (Wind, Precipitation, Temperature, etc.) | Technique: Remote Sensing | Topic: Validation and Intercomparisons
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Intercomparison of AIRS and HIRDLS stratospheric gravity wave observations
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Each year large human and economical losses are due to fog episodes. However, fog forecasts remain quite inaccurate, partly due to a lack of observations in the atmospheric boundary layer. The benefit of ground-based microwave radiometers has been investigated and has demonstrated their capability of significantly improving the initial state of temperature and liquid water content profiles in current numerical weather prediction models, paving the way for improved fog forecasts in the future.
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Freek Liefhebber, Sarah Lammens, Paul W. G. Brussee, André Bos, Viju O. John, Frank Rüthrich, Jacobus Onderwaater, Michael G. Grant, and Jörg Schulz
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Felix Erdmann, Eric Defer, Olivier Caumont, Richard J. Blakeslee, Stéphane Pédeboy, and Sylvain Coquillat
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This article compares lightning observations from an optical sensor onboard the International Space Station to two ground-based networks using different radio frequencies. The location and timing of coincident flashes agree well for the three instruments. Differences exist for the detected number of flashes and the characteristics. Small flashes in particular are not always detected by all three instruments. About half of the flashes at altitudes below 10 km are not seen by the satellite sensor.
Irene Crisologo and Maik Heistermann
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Archives of radar observations often suffer from errors, one of which is calibration. However, it is possible to correct them after the fact by using satellite radars as a calibration reference. We propose improvements to this calibration method by considering factors that affect the data quality, such that poor quality data gets filtered out in the bias calculation by assigning weights. We also show that the bias can be interpolated in time even for days when there are no satellite data.
Zachary Fasnacht, Alexander Vasilkov, David Haffner, Wenhan Qin, Joanna Joiner, Nickolay Krotkov, Andrew M. Sayer, and Robert Spurr
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Haruki Oshio, Yukio Yoshida, and Tsuneo Matsunaga
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We investigate the radiance offset in the O2 A band of GOSAT spectrometer and quality of the offset-corrected solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF). An analysis of temporal variation of the offset suggests that the radiometric sensitivity of the spectrometer changed after switching the optics path selector in January 2015. Comparisons at multiple spatial scales show good agreement between GOSAT SIF and OCO-2 SIF, which supports the consistency among the present satellite SIF data.
Martin Lasser, Sungmin O, and Ulrich Foelsche
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This paper evaluates the rain rate estimates from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's radar instrument by comparing them to the data of the WegenerNet, a local-scale high-resolution network of meteorological stations. Our results show that the GPM-DPR estimates basically match with the WegenerNet measurements, but absolute quantities are biased.
Jun Zhou and Hu Yang
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 4983–4992, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-4983-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-4983-2019, 2019
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Evaluating the on-orbit geolocation accuracy of the ATMS is of great importance. The widely used Earth-target-dependent methods are crippled by the strong atmospheric absorption at sounding channels and cloud contamination at window channels. To solve these issues, this study developed a geolocation evaluation algorithm based on a unique 2-D lunar scan dataset captured by the ATMS during a NOAA-20 pitch-over maneuver operation. The results are validated by the coastline inflection point method.
Andrew John Spargo, Iain Murray Reid, and Andrew David MacKinnon
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 4791–4812, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-4791-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-4791-2019, 2019
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We simulate the ability of a recently installed multistation meteor detection radar to measure characteristics of turbulence in the Earth's lower ionosphere. After verifying that it performs reasonably well, we use the radar's data to study an interaction between turbulence and tidal effects. We performed the study because no one has yet applied a multistation radar to this problem before and because multistation radars like this are becoming increasingly common worldwide.
Wenhan Qin, Zachary Fasnacht, David Haffner, Alexander Vasilkov, Joanna Joiner, Nickolay Krotkov, Bradford Fisher, and Robert Spurr
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 3997–4017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-3997-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-3997-2019, 2019
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Satellite observations depend on Sun and view angles due to anisotropy of the Earth's atmosphere and surface reflection. But most of the ultraviolet and visible cloud, aerosol, and trace-gas algorithms utilize surface reflectivity databases that do not account for surface anisotropy. We create a surface database using the GLER concept which adequately accounts for surface anisotropy, validate it with independent satellite data, and provide a simple implementation to the current algorithms.
Uriya Veerendra Murali Krishna, Subrata Kumar Das, Kizhathur Narasimhan Uma, and Govindan Pandithurai
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 777–790, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-777-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-777-2019, 2019
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Convective available potential energy (CAPE) is an indicator of the occurrence of extreme weather. For the first time over India, this study estimated CAPE from high spatial–temporal resolution measurements of the geostationary satellite, INSAT-3D. INSAT-3D estimates that CAPE reasonably represents the radiosonde CAPE. This study allows the atmospheric science community to select the best available dataset for their use in nowcasting and making severe weather warnings based on numerical models.
Robin Wing, Alain Hauchecorne, Philippe Keckhut, Sophie Godin-Beekmann, Sergey Khaykin, and Emily M. McCullough
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 6703–6717, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-6703-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-6703-2018, 2018
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We have compared 2433 nights of OHP lidar temperatures (2002–2018) to temperatures derived from the satellites SABER and MLS. We have found a winter stratopause cold bias in the satellite measurements with respect to the lidar (−6 K for SABER and −17 K for MLS), a summer mesospheric warm bias for SABER (6 K near 60 km), and a vertically structured bias for MLS (−4 to 4 K). We have corrected the satellite data based on the lidar-determined stratopause height and found a significant improvement.
Shailesh Parihar, Ashim Kumar Mitra, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, and Rajjev Bhatla
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 6003–6012, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-6003-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-6003-2018, 2018
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This paper is based on operational work carried out at IMD, New Delhi using the INSAT-3D satellite-derived sounder product TPW for weather events such as rainfall and thunderstorms. The INSAT-3D TPW has been used by forecasters as well as many other users over the last 2 years. This work mainly brings out an in-depth validation with in situ ground measurement data as well as a GNSS system for its suitability in weather prediction. This paper can be utilized operationally for weather purposes.
Robin Wing, Alain Hauchecorne, Philippe Keckhut, Sophie Godin-Beekmann, Sergey Khaykin, Emily M. McCullough, Jean-François Mariscal, and Éric d'Almeida
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 5531–5547, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5531-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5531-2018, 2018
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The objective of this work is to minimize the errors at the highest altitudes of a lidar temperature profile which arise due to background estimation and a priori choice. The systematic method in this paper has the effect of cooling the temperatures at the top of a lidar profile by up to 20 K – bringing them into better agreement with satellite temperatures. Following the description of the algorithm is a 20-year cross-validation of two lidars which establishes the stability of the technique.
Irene Crisologo, Robert A. Warren, Kai Mühlbauer, and Maik Heistermann
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 5223–5236, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5223-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5223-2018, 2018
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The calibration of ground-based weather radar (GR) can be improved a posteriori by comparing observed GR reflectivity to well-established spaceborne radar platforms (SR), such as TRMM or GPM. Our study shows that the consistency between GR and SR reflectivity measurements can be enhanced by considering the quality of GR data from areas where signals may have been blocked due to the surrounding terrain, and provides an open-source toolset to carry out corresponding analyses.
Manuel F. Rios Gaona, Aart Overeem, Timothy H. Raupach, Hidde Leijnse, and Remko Uijlenhoet
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 4465–4476, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4465-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4465-2018, 2018
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Rainfall estimates from commercial microwave links were obtained for the city of Sao Paulo (Brazil). The results show the potential of such networks as complementary rainfall measurements for more robust networks (e.g. radars, gauges, satellites).
Therese Rieckh and Richard Anthes
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 4309–4325, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4309-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4309-2018, 2018
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We compare the two-cornered hat (2CH) and three-cornered hat (3CH) method for estimating the error variances of two or more independent data sets using simulated data with various error correlations and biases.
We assess the accuracy of the 3CH and 2CH estimates and examine the sensitivity of the estimated error variances to the degree of error correlation between the data sets as well as sample size. The 3CH method is less sensitive to these factors and hence more accurate.
Nicola Bodini, Julie K. Lundquist, and Rob K. Newsom
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 4291–4308, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4291-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4291-2018, 2018
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Turbulence within the atmospheric boundary layer is critically important to transfer heat, momentum, and moisture. Currently, improved turbulence parametrizations are crucially needed to refine the accuracy of model results at fine horizontal scales. In this study, we calculate turbulence dissipation rate from sonic anemometers and discuss a novel approach to derive turbulence dissipation from profiling lidar measurements.
Martin Burgdorf, Imke Hans, Marc Prange, Theresa Lang, and Stefan A. Buehler
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 4005–4014, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4005-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4005-2018, 2018
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We analysed observations of the Moon with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-B on the NOAA-16 satellite in order to search for bias in the sounding channels. Significant bias had been detected in the past on the basis of simultaneous nadir overpasses. With the Moon providing a quite different reference flux than the on-board calibration target and Earth scenes, radio-frequency interference emerged as the best explanation for the anomalies of channel 20 of AMSU-B on NOAA-16.
Daniel Wolfensberger and Alexis Berne
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 3883–3916, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-3883-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-3883-2018, 2018
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This work presents a polarimetric forward operator for the COSMO weather prediction model. This tool is able to simulate radar observables from the state of the atmosphere simulated by the model, taking into account most physical aspects of radar beam propagation and backscattering. This operator was validated with a large dataset of radar observations from several instruments and it was shown that is able to simulate a realistic radar signature in liquid precipitation.
Therese Rieckh, Richard Anthes, William Randel, Shu-Peng Ho, and Ulrich Foelsche
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 3091–3109, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-3091-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-3091-2018, 2018
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Water vapor is the most important tropospheric greenhouse gas and is also highly variable in space and time. We study the vertical structure and variability of tropospheric humidity using various observing techniques (GPS radio occultation, radiosondes, Atmospheric Infrared Sounder) and models. Time–height cross sections reveal seasonal biases for different pressure layers. We find that radio occultation humidity has high accuracy and can contribute valuable information in data assimilation.
Shay Gilpin, Therese Rieckh, and Richard Anthes
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 2567–2582, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-2567-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-2567-2018, 2018
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Comparing observational systems when observations are not taken at the exact same time or location can introduce sampling errors that can be come significant during error analysis. In this study, we develop two methods to reduce sampling errors: using ellipse distance constraints rather than circles and subtracting model background. We found that both the ellipses and subtracting model background from
the observations reduce sampling errors caused by spatial and temporal differences.
Xiao Yu, Feiqin Xie, and Chi O. Ao
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 2051–2066, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-2051-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-2051-2018, 2018
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Atmospheric observations from GPS receiver satellites offer uniform spatial coverage over the Arctic. The GPS profiles sensing deep into the lowest 300 m of the atmosphere only reach 50–60 % in summer but over 70 % in other seasons. The profile uncertainty due to different data centers is within 0.07 % in refractivity, 0.72 K in temperature, and 0.05 g kg-1 in humidity below 10 km. A systematic negative bias of 1 % in refractivity below 2 km is only seen in the summer due to moisture impact.
Getachew Tesfaye Ayehu, Tsegaye Tadesse, Berhan Gessesse, and Tufa Dinku
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 1921–1936, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1921-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1921-2018, 2018
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The intent of this research paper is to rigorously validate the performance of satellite rainfall products to be used for various operational applications in data-scarce regions of the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin in Ethiopia. It was found that satellite rainfall products could be used as an alternative source of rainfall data in areas with no or poor ground observations. Their reliable performance could make more appropriate for various functions in complex topographic areas of the UBN basin.
Rolf Rüfenacht, Gerd Baumgarten, Jens Hildebrand, Franziska Schranz, Vivien Matthias, Gunter Stober, Franz-Josef Lübken, and Niklaus Kämpfer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 1971–1987, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1971-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1971-2018, 2018
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Wind information throughout the middle-atmosphere is crucial for the understanding of atmospheric dynamics but became available only recently, thanks to developments in remote sensing and modelling approaches. We present the first thorough assessment of the quality of the wind estimates by comparing co-located observations from lidar and microwave radiometry and opposing them to the major atmospheric models. Moreover we evaluated a new approach for measuring mesopause region wind by radiometry.
Julian Liman, Marc Schröder, Karsten Fennig, Axel Andersson, and Rainer Hollmann
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 1793–1815, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1793-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1793-2018, 2018
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Latent heat fluxes (LHF) play a major role in the climate system. Over open ocean, they are increasingly observed by satellite instruments. To access their quality, this research focuses on thorough uncertainty analysis of all LHF-related variables of the HOAPS satellite climatology, in parts making use of novel analysis approaches. Results indicate climatological LHF uncertainies up to 50 W m−2, whereby underlying specific humidities tend to be more uncertain than contributing wind speeds.
Panagiotis Vergados, Anthony J. Mannucci, Chi O. Ao, Olga Verkhoglyadova, and Byron Iijima
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 1193–1206, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1193-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1193-2018, 2018
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This study cross-compares the 10-year record of GPS radio occultation (GPS-RO) specific humidity product against independent databases (e.g., AIRS satellite, NASA/MERRA, and ERA-Interim). Our objective is to investigate the suitability of the GPS-RO humidity as a climate variable, which the science community could use in climate research. GPS-RO offers high vertical resolution, low sensitivity to clouds, and long-term stability making GPS-RO humidity a valuable complementary data set.
Markus Rapp, Andreas Dörnbrack, and Bernd Kaifler
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 1031–1048, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1031-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1031-2018, 2018
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Temperature profiles from operational weather satellites are used to determine the global distribution of gravity wave activity. This is an important information to constrain global climate models. The quality of this data set is assessed by
systematic comparison to model fields from ECMWF which are considered very high quality. This reveals good agreement between model and observations, albeit the model misses localized centers of wave activity if model resolution is too low.
Panagiotis G. Kosmopoulos, Stelios Kazadzis, Michael Taylor, Panagiotis I. Raptis, Iphigenia Keramitsoglou, Chris Kiranoudis, and Alkiviadis F. Bais
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 907–924, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-907-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-907-2018, 2018
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Continuous monitoring of solar energy from space is critical for its efficient exploitation and distribution. For this reason we developed neural-network- and function-based real-time models, which are capable of producing massive radiation outputs in high spectral, spatial and temporal resolution. The models' performance against ground-based measurements revealed a dependence on input quality and resolution, and an overall accuracy under cloudless and high solar energy potential conditions.
Feiqin Xie, Loknath Adhikari, Jennifer S. Haase, Brian Murphy, Kuo-Nung Wang, and James L. Garrison
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 763–780, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-763-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-763-2018, 2018
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The GPS signal going through the atmosphere will experience refraction or bending, which can be precisely measured and used to infer the atmospheric properties. This paper demonstrates that high-quality atmospheric measurement with less than ~ 0.4 K is achievable from a GPS recording system with a simple antenna mounted on top of an aircraft cruising at ~ 13 km. Such a simple airborne GPS system can be implemented on commercial aircraft to provide valuable data for weather models in the future.
Catrin I. Meyer, Manfred Ern, Lars Hoffmann, Quang Thai Trinh, and M. Joan Alexander
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 215–232, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-215-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-215-2018, 2018
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We investigate stratospheric gravity wave observations by the Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder (AIRS) and the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS). Waves seen by AIRS contribute significantly to momentum flux, which indicates a calculated momentum flux factor. AIRS and HIRDLS agree well in the phase structure of the wave events and also in the seasonal and latitudinal patterns of gravity wave activity and can be used complementary to each other.
Elena Castillo-López, Jose Antonio Dominguez, Raúl Pereda, Julio Manuel de Luis, Ruben Pérez, and Felipe Piña
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 3919–3929, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-3919-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-3919-2017, 2017
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This work is part of a project funded by the government of Spain, whose objective was to develop a methodology that would allow the grain size and heavy metals estimation in the sediments of the intertidal zone (Bay of Santander) and depth estimation in the subtidal area, using information (VNIR) captured by the hyperspectral sensor, CASI-2, a spectroradiometer ASD-FR (350–2500 nm) in field and laboratory and classical and robust statistic algorithms.
Pauline Martinet, Domenico Cimini, Francesco De Angelis, Guylaine Canut, Vinciane Unger, Remi Guillot, Diane Tzanos, and Alexandre Paci
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 3385–3402, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-3385-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-3385-2017, 2017
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Microwave radiometers have the capability of observing temperature and humidity profiles with a few minute time resolution. This study investigates the potential benefit of this instrument to improve weather forecasts thanks to a better initialization of the model. Our results show that a significant improvement can be expected in the model initialization in the first 3 km with potential impacts on weather forecasts.
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