INSTRUMENTS and OBSERVING METHODS REPORT No. 36 WMO
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION INSTRUMENTS AND OBSERVING METHODS REPORT No. 36 1989 WMO/TD-No. 344 f WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION INSTRUMENTS AND OBSERVING METHODS REPORT NO. 36 COMPATIBILITY OF RADIOSONDE GEOPOTENTIAL MEASUREMENTS by M. KITCHEN 1989 WMOITD-No. 344 The designations employed and the presentation of material in this document do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. This report has been produced without editorial revision by the WMO Secretariat, it is not an official WMO publication and its distribution in this form does not imply endorsement by the Organization of the ideas expressed. CONTENTS Page Chapter 1 - Introduction 1.1 Aim of the report .................... ·................................................. 1.2 Summary of the method ............................................................... I 1.3 Source of error in geopotential measurements ............................................. 2 Chapter 2 - Systematic errors in geopotential measurements 2. I Notation ............................................................................ 3 2.2 WMO intercomparison results .......................................................... 3 2.3 . Radiation corrections for key radiosonde designs .................' ......................... 3 2.3.1 Vaisala RS80 ...................................... ; ................................. 3 2.3.2 UK Meteorological Office RS3 ......................................................... 6 2.3.3 VIZ ................................................................................. 6 2.3.4 Graw M60 ........................................................................... 6 2.3.5 Indian Met. Service Mk 3 .............................................................. 6 2.3.6 Phillips ..............................................................•................. 6 2.4. ECMWF monitoring statistics .......................................................... 7 2.5 120(H)000 GMT differences from time-series analysis ...................................... 8 Chapter 3 - Reproducibility of radiosonde geopotential measurements 3.1 Standards derived from WMO intercomparison ........................................... 12 3.2 Estimates from time-series analysis ...................................................... 12 . 3.3 Estimates from ECMWF statistics ...................................................... 12 Chapter 4 - Survey of the radiosonde network 4.1 Fully automated systems ............................................................... 15 4.2 Manual and semi-automatic systems ..................................................... 15 4.3 The USA network .............................................................. ·...... 16 4.4 The USSR network ................................................................... 16 Chapter 5 - Conclusions and recommendations 5.1 Radiosonde performance monitoring .................................................... 18 5.2 Radiosonde operations ................................................................ 18 5.3 Radiosonde systems ................................................................... 18 Acknowledgement .................................................................... 19 References ........................................................................... 20 Tables .............................................................................. 21-40 Appendix - Radiosonde and groundstation equipment list ................................. 41 - 1 - CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 The aim of the report Radiosonde observations remain the principal source of upper-air data used in synoptic-scale meteorological analysis. There are currently approximately 950 upper-air stations world-wide and about 20 major radiosonde type variations (see Appendix). Recent comparisons between radiosonde measurements of geopotential height and short term forecast or analysed fields from numerical models confirm that significant biases exist in the measurements from different stations (see e.g. Radford 1987). The existence of these biases has been highlighted in the previous CIMO reports on radiosonde data compatibility (Spackman 1978, Moores 1982, Nash 1984). The biases are significant because their existence degrades the quality of upper-air analyses. However, the method used previously provided reliable estimates of the biases only where the density of stations in the upper-air network was high (e.g. in Western Europe). The results from the WMO radiosonde comparisons have directly quantified the differences between the measurements from some operational radiosonde types. However, only a fraction of the total number of operational radiosonde designs have been compared and the experiments could not simulate the global range of operating conditions. The aim of the work described here was to use the intercomparison results to validate the use of the 'tlrst guess' (FG) field of the numerical forecasting model run at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) as a data monitoring reference (see Hollingsworth et .al. 1986). It is shown that using the ECMWF FG field, it has proved possible to provide more reliable estimates of the systematic biases on a global basis. If the bias and reproducibility of the measurements at each station in the global upper-air network can be quantified, the results will be of value in three areas of operational weather forecasting, namely: (a) To identify those stations in the global network which are producing measurements of poor quality or of a quality very different from that expected, given the type of radiosonde equipment believed to be in use. (b) To identify any differences in performance of the same type of radiosonde in different locations. (c) To provide a method whereby geopotential height measurements may be adjusted to be compatible with the WMO reference measurement. ) This study is limited to an assessment of radiosonde geopotential measurement bias and reproducibility at the 100 hPa level because most operational radiosonde ascents achieve this level, so data availability is satisfactory. Also, there is little small-scale spatial and temporal variability in the 100 hP a height fields, enabling more accurate meteorological analysis than is possible at lower levels in the atmosphere. The radiosonde measurements from the surface to 100 hPa are the most important for operational weather forecasting. 1.2 Summary of the method As a result of the 1984/85 WMO comparison experiments, a geopotential 'reference measurement' was defined as the average of the geopotential measurements from the VIZ and Vaisala RS80 radiosonde during darkness (systems as operated during the comparison experiments). This standard is referred to as the WMO reference (or REF for short) hereafter. The WMO comparison provided two types of information (see Nash 1987): (a) Biases between the measurements from five different radiosonde designs in current operational use (VIZ, Vaisala RS80, UK Met. Office RS3, Graw M60, Indian Met. Service MK 3) were accurately measured during darkness and during daylight at a few different solar elevation angles. - 2 - (b) The reproducibility of the measurements from these five radiosonde designs was acc\)rately determined (see Table 1). Experimental conditions duri1"1g the comparisons aimed to simulate optimum operational conditions and the results may not reflect the measurement quality actually achieved at operational stations around the world using these same radiosonde types. The WMO comparison results represent attainable standards for the operation of the radiosonde equipment. The five operational radiosonde designs in the comparisons are used at about 430 stations world-wide (about· 45% of the total network). · In this study, the biases between four of the key radiosonde designs and the WMO Reference measured in the comparisons have been compared with the bias between operational measurements using these radiosonde designs and the ECMWF FG field. The FG field was thus effectively 'calibrated' and has been used as a transfer standard to estimate the bias and reproducibility of all the stations in the global upper-air network. For this process to be successful, detailed knowledge of the radiosonde and groundstation equipment in use at stations in the upper-air network was essential. An important source of such information was the upper-air catalogue produced by WMO (1986). However, changes in tli.e upper-air network occur continuously and this catalogue is already out of date in important areas. Also, the catalogue provides information on radiosonde types and equipment on a country-by-country basis. Many countries use two or more types of radiosonde and so there is a need for more detailed information on a station-by-station basis. An attempt has been made to compile a more detailed catalogue from other i11formation sources and this is included in this report in the Appendix. Note that analysis of geopotential data is based on summer 1988, whereas information received up to early 1989 has been included in the Appendices. 1.3 Sources of error in geopotential measurement There are many potential sources of systematic and random errors in radiosonde geopotential measurements and the sources are different for different methods of geopotential determination.