Validation of wind measurements of two MST radars in northern Sweden and in Antarctica

Abstract. Two atmospheric VHF radars: ESRAD located near Kiruna in the Swedish Artic and MARA at Indian research station Maitri in Antarctica perform wind measurements in the troposphere and lower stratosphere on a regular basis. We compared horizontal winds at altitudes between about 0.5 km and 14 km derived from the radar data using the full correlation analysis technique with radiosonde observations and models. The comparison with 28 radiosondes launched from January 2017 to August 2019 showed that ESRAD underestimates the zonal and meridional winds by about 8 % and 25 %, respectively. The mean differences between the radar and radiosonde winds are −1.4 m/s and 0.4 m/s. A similar result was found when comparing with the regional NWP model HARMONIE-AROME for the period September 2018–May 2019. The ESRAD random error was estimated to be 2.8 m/s (2.4 m/s) for the zonal (meridional) component. The comparison of MARA with the ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis for January–December 2019 reveals good agreement between them with the mean difference between 0.1 m/s and −0.5 m/s depending on the component and season. The MARA random errors are 2.6 m/s and 2.3 m/s for the zonal and meridional winds, respectively.