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| Titel |
Climate comparison of reference upper-air measurements: GPS radio occultation and GRUAN radiosondes |
| VerfasserIn |
Florian Ladstädter, Andrea K. Steiner, Marc Schwärz, Gottfried Kirchengast |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2015
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 17 (2015) |
| Datensatznummer |
250102589
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2015-1918.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The confidence in the vertical structure of the rate of temperature change
in the upper-air region is still low. To change this, measurements of
suitable quality are required. Observations from the GPS radio occultation
(GPSRO) satellite technique and from the newly established GCOS Reference
Upper Air Network (GRUAN) are both candidates to serve as reference
observations. GPSRO is currently the only self-calibrated and SI-traceable
satellite measurement system, where the observations can be traced back to
precise time measurements. These observations possess the required high
quality with global coverage, but common physical parameters such as
temperature are only available after a sophisticated retrieval
process. GRUAN on the other hand delivers data only from a sparse network
of radiosonde stations (16 stations at present), with a more
straight-forward measurement principle and careful bias corrections
applied. Owing to the strongly differing techniques, GPSRO and GRUAN have
their unique strengths and weaknesses. In this study, we compare collocated
profiles from these two datasets for the time period 2011 to 2013, with a
special focus on day/night biases, and use interpolated ERA-Interim data as
an additional source of background information. The GRUAN effort is a vital
contribution to the goal of anchoring less accurate upper-air measurements
to reference data. GPSRO adds to this global coverage and more
stratospheric extend, and, as an observing system independent from
radiosondes, serves as another fundamentally needed source of thermodynamic
reference data in the free atmosphere. |
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