scholarly journals Sub-Fresnel-scale vertical resolution in atmospheric profiles from radio occultation

Radio Science ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 411-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Tuna Karayel ◽  
David P. Hinson
2017 ◽  
Vol 122 (3) ◽  
pp. 1595-1616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Scherllin‐Pirscher ◽  
Andrea K. Steiner ◽  
Gottfried Kirchengast ◽  
Marc Schwärz ◽  
Stephen S. Leroy

2004 ◽  
Vol 82 (1B) ◽  
pp. 381-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens WICKERT ◽  
Torsten SCHMIDT ◽  
Georg BEYERLE ◽  
Rolf KÖNIG ◽  
Christoph REIGBER ◽  
...  

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (9) ◽  
pp. 1965-1977 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Ladstädter ◽  
A. K. Steiner ◽  
U. Foelsche ◽  
L. Haimberger ◽  
C. Tavolato ◽  
...  

Abstract. Uncertainties for upper-air trend patterns are still substantial. Observations from the radio occultation (RO) technique offer new opportunities to assess the existing observational records there. Long-term time series are available from radiosondes and from the (Advanced) Microwave Sounding Unit (A)MSU. None of them were originally intended to deliver data for climate applications. Demanding intercalibration and homogenization procedures are required to account for changes in instrumentation and observation techniques. In this comparative study three (A)MSU anomaly time series and two homogenized radiosonde records are compared to RO data from the CHAMP, SAC-C, GRACE-A and F3C missions for September 2001 to December 2010. Differences of monthly anomalies are examined to assess the differences in the datasets due to structural uncertainties. The difference of anomalies of the (A)MSU datasets relative to RO shows a statistically significant trend within about (−0.2±0.1) K/10 yr (95% confidence interval) at all latitudes. This signals a systematic deviation of the two datasets over time. The radiosonde network has known deficiencies in its global coverage, with sparse representation of most of the southern hemisphere, the tropics and the oceans. In this study the error that results from sparse sampling is estimated and accounted for by subtracting it from radiosonde and RO datasets. Surprisingly the sampling error correction is also important in the Northern Hemisphere (NH), where the radiosonde network is dense over the continents but does not capture large atmospheric variations in NH winter. Considering the sampling error, the consistency of radiosonde and RO anomalies is improving substantially; the trend in the anomaly differences is generally very small. Regarding (A)MSU, its poor vertical resolution poses another problem by missing important features of the vertical atmospheric structure. This points to the advantage of homogeneously distributed measurements with high vertical resolution.


2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 1627-1636 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Tsuda ◽  
X. Lin ◽  
H. Hayashi ◽  

Abstract. GPS radio occultation (RO) is characterized by high accuracy and excellent height resolution, which has great advantages in analyzing atmospheric structures including small-scale vertical fluctuations. The vertical resolution of the geometrical optics (GO) method in the stratosphere is about 1.5 km due to Fresnel radius limitations, but full spectrum inversion (FSI) can provide superior resolutions. We applied FSI to COSMIC GPS-RO profiles from ground level up to 30 km altitude, although basic retrieval at UCAR/CDAAC sets the sewing height from GO to FSI below the tropopause. We validated FSI temperature profiles with routine high-resolution radiosonde data in Malaysia and North America collected within 400 km and about 30 min of the GPS RO events. The average discrepancy at 10–30 km altitude was less than 0.5 K, and the bias was equivalent with the GO results. Using the FSI results, we analyzed the vertical wave number spectrum of normalized temperature fluctuations in the stratosphere at 20–30 km altitude, which exhibits good consistency with the model spectra of saturated gravity waves. We investigated the white noise floor that tends to appear at high wave numbers, and the substantial vertical resolution of the FSI method was estimated as about 100–200 m in the lower stratosphere. We also examined a criterion for the upper limit of the FSI profiles, beyond which bending angle perturbations due to system noises, etc., could exceed atmospheric excess phase fluctuations. We found that the FSI profiles can be used up to about 28 km in studies of temperature fluctuations with vertical wave lengths as short as 0.5 km.


2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 2071-2097
Author(s):  
T. Tsuda ◽  
X. Lin ◽  
H. Hayashi ◽  

Abstract. GPS radio occultation (RO) is characterized by high accuracy and excellent height resolution, which has great advantages in analyzing atmospheric structures including small-scale vertical fluctuations. The vertical resolution of the geometrical optics (GO) method in the stratosphere is about 1.5 km due to Fresnel radius limitations, but full spectrum inversion (FSI) can provide superior resolutions. We applied FSI to COSMIC GPS-RO profiles from ground level up to 30 km altitude, although basic retrieval at UCAR/CDAAC sets the sewing height from GO to FSI below the tropopause. We validated FSI temperature profiles with routine high-resolution radiosonde data in Malaysia and North America collected within 400 km and about 30 min of the GPS RO events. The average discrepancy at 10–30 km altitude was less than 0.5 K, and the bias was equivalent with the GO results. Using the FSI results, we analyzed the vertical wave number spectrum of normalized temperature fluctuations in the stratosphere at 20–30 km altitude, which exhibits good consistency with the model spectra of saturated gravity waves. We investigated the white noise floor that tends to appear at high wave numbers, and the substantial vertical resolution of the FSI method was estimated as about 100–200 m in the lower stratosphere. We also examined a criterion for the upper limit of the FSI profiles, beyond which bending angle perturbations due to system noises, etc, could exceed atmospheric excess phase fluctuations. We found that the FSI profiles can be used up to about 28 km in studies of temperature fluctuations with vertical wave lengths as short as 0.5 km.


2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 25409-25441 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Xie ◽  
D. L. Wu ◽  
C. O. Ao ◽  
A. J. Mannucci

Abstract. Diurnal and semi-diurnal variations, driven by solar forcing, are two fundamental modes in the Earth's weather and climate system. Radio occultation (RO) measurements from the six COSMIC satellites (Constellation Observing System for Meteorology Ionosphere and Climate) provide rather uniform global coverage with high vertical resolution, all-weather and diurnal sampling capability. This paper analyzes the diurnal and semi-diurnal variations of both temperature and refractivity from two-year (2007–2008) COSMIC RO measurements in the troposphere and stratosphere. The RO observations reveal both propagating and trapped vertical structures of diurnal and semi-diurnal variations, including transition regions near the tropopause where data with high vertical resolution are critical. In the tropics the diurnal amplitude in refractivity decreases with altitude from a local maximum in the planetary boundary layer and reaches the minimum around 14 km and then further increase amplitude in the stratosphere. The upward propagating component of the migrating diurnal tides in the tropics is clearly captured by the GPS RO measurements, which show a downward progression in phase from upper troposphere to the stratopause with a vertical wavelength of about 25 km. Below 500 hPa (~5.5 km), seasonal variations of the peak diurnal amplitude in the tropics follow the solor forcing change in latitude, while at 30 km the seasonal pattern reverses with the diurnal amplitude peaking at the opposite side of the equator relative to the solar forcing. Polar regions shows large diurnal variations in the stratosphere with strong seasonal variations and the cause(s) of these variations require further investigations.


2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (10) ◽  
pp. 1726-1739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shu-Peng Ho ◽  
Ying-Hwa Kuo ◽  
Sergey Sokolovskiy

Abstract Accurate temperature and water vapor profiles in the middle and lower troposphere (LT) are crucial for understanding the water cycle, cloud systems, and energy balance. Global positioning system (GPS) radio occultation (RO) is the first technique that can provide a high-vertical-resolution all-weather refractivity profile, which is a function of pressure, temperature, and moisture. However, in the moist LT over the Tropics, the refractivity retrievals from GPS RO data are often significantly negatively biased because of tracking errors and propagation effects related to sharp vertical moisture gradients that may result in superrefraction (SR). The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is a nadir-viewing sounder that can measure vertical temperature and moisture profiles with about 1–2-km vertical resolution. However, AIRS observations cannot usually obtain accurate temperature and water vapor profiles in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) because of the poor resolving power in the LT. This study uses simulations based on radiosonde profiles by combining the AIRS and the GPS RO measurements to obtain the best temperature and moisture retrievals in the LT. Different approaches are used for the drier LT and the moist LT. For the drier LT, where GPS RO data are not affected by SR errors, a multivariable regression algorithm for inverting the combined AIRS and GPS RO measurements is used. In the moist LT (e.g., SR on top of PBL), the combined AIRS and GPS RO regression inversion above the LT is used as the first guess for AIRS-only physical retrieval, which is extended into the LT. The results show that combining AIRS and GPS RO data effectively constrains the individual solutions, and therefore significantly improves inversion results. The algorithm is also applied for all available radiosonde profiles (19 profiles) over a 1-month period from the site characterized by strong SR on top of the PBL. Retrieved temperature and water vapor profiles yield unbiased low-resolution refractivity profiles in the PBL.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 1033-1044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Hyun Ha ◽  
Jeon-Ho Kang ◽  
Suk-Jin Choi

Abstract The sensitivity of GPS radio occultation (GPSRO) bending angle assimilation to vertical resolution was studied within a global three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3DVAR) system. The sensitivity experiments were performed using different vertical resolutions of GPSRO data at 2 km, 1 km, 500 m, and 200 m. The assimilation of the higher vertical resolution GPSRO data showed better consistency in the analysis–forecast cycle in terms of the differences between GPSRO bending angle data and 6-h forecasts (O-F). This resulted in an improved analysis of the temperature, geopotential height, and wind in the mid-/upper-level troposphere by the hydrostatic response and the related model dynamics. It should be noted that the highest vertical resolution of the GPSRO data (200 m in this study) improved the forecasting skill level in terms of the root-mean-square error (against the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts analysis) and the anomaly correlation of the geopotential height forecasting at 500 and 200 hPa in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The benefits of assimilating higher vertical resolution GPSRO data were more pronounced in the upper-level troposphere, which was in agreement with previous studies using real GPSRO observations.


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