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Title: Comparison of Vaisala radiosondes RS41 and RS92 at the ARM Southern Great Plains site

Journal Article · · Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (Online)
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In the fall of 2013, the Vaisala RS41 (fourth generation) radiosonde was introduced as a replacement for the RS92-SGP radiosonde with improvements in measurement accuracy of profiles of atmospheric temperature, humidity, and pressure. In order to help characterize these improvements, an intercomparison campaign was undertaken at the US Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility site in north-central Oklahoma, USA. During 3–8 June 2014, a total of 20 twin-radiosonde flights were performed in a variety of atmospheric conditions representing typical midlatitude continental summertime conditions. The results show that for most of the observed conditions the RS92 and RS41 measurements agree much better than the manufacturer-specified combined uncertainties with notable exceptions when exiting liquid cloud layers where the “wet-bulbing” effect appears to be mitigated for several cases in the RS41 observations. The RS41 measurements of temperature and humidity, with applied correction algorithms, also appear to show less sensitivity to solar heating. These results suggest that the RS41 does provide important improvements, particularly in cloudy conditions. For many science applications – such as atmospheric process studies, retrieval development, and weather forecasting and climate modeling – the differences between the RS92 and RS41 measurements should have little impact. However, for long-term trend analysis and other climate applications, additional characterization of the RS41 measurements and their relation to the long-term observational records will be required.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1344548
Journal Information:
Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (Online), Vol. 9, Issue 7; ISSN 1867-8548
Publisher:
European Geosciences Union
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Using AIRS and ARM SGP Clear-Sky Observations to Evaluate Meteorological Reanalyses: A Hyperspectral Radiance Closure Approach journal October 2018
Interaction of convective organization with monsoon precipitation, atmosphere, surface and sea: The 2016 INCOMPASS field campaign in India journal October 2019
A global assessment of NASA AIRS v6 and EUMETSAT IASI v6 precipitable water vapor using ground-based GPS SuomiNet stations: IR PWV ASSESSMENT journal August 2016
Environmental and Sensor Integration Influences on Temperature Measurements by Rotary-Wing Unmanned Aircraft Systems journal March 2019
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