Enhancing the Data Coverage in the Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive

Durre, Imke; Yin, Xungang; Vose, Russell S.; Applequist, Scott; Arnfield, Jeff

doi:10.1175/jtech-d-17-0223.1

Cited by 129 publications

(128 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…The main obstacle to answering the above research questions was initially a lack of availability of highquality, long-term observed daily precipitation data covering large portions of the world (Alexander et al, 2006). Although internationally coordinated efforts have worked to address some gaps in data availability (Donat, Alexander, Yang, Durre, Vose, & Caesar, 2013;Donat, Alexander, Yang, Durre, Vose, Dunn, et al, 2013;Durre et al, 2018), the data coverage remained poor in many regions, especially in Africa and South America. For this reason, this study has striven to bring together as many data contributors and coauthors, now representing fifteen countries.…”

Section: Citationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precipitation From Persistent Extremes is Increasing in Most Regions and Globally

Alexander

Donat

et al. 2019

Geophysical Research Letters

102

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Extreme precipitation often persists for multiple days with variable duration but has usually been examined at fixed duration. Here we show that considering extreme persistent precipitation by complete event with variable duration, rather than a fixed temporal period, is a necessary metric to account for the complexity of changing precipitation. Observed global mean annual‐maximum precipitation is significantly stronger (49.5%) for persistent extremes than daily extremes. However, both globally observed and modeled rates of relative increases are lower for persistent extremes compared to daily extremes, especially for Southern Hemisphere and large regions in the 0‐45°N latitude band. Climate models also show significant differences in the magnitude and partly even the sign of local mean changes between daily and persistent extremes in global warming projections. Changes in extreme precipitation therefore are more complex than previously reported, and extreme precipitation events with varying duration should be taken into account for future climate change assessments.

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Section: Citationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precipitation From Persistent Extremes is Increasing in Most Regions and Globally

Alexander

Donat

et al. 2019

Geophysical Research Letters

102

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“…A radiosonde is a balloon-borne instrument that directly observes the basic atmospheric quantities such as pressure, temperature, horizontal wind, and relative humidity (RH). Radiosondes are launched more than twice a day at approximately 800 stations around the world (Durre et al, 2018;Ingleby et al, 2016). Radiosonde data are arguably the most important and essential data source for numerical weather prediction models and have been used in studies of planetary boundary layer height (Seidel et al, 2010;Sorbjan & Balsley, 2008), tropopause structure (Birner, 2006;Birner et al, 2002;Seidel & Randel, 2006;Sunilkumar et al, 2017), and gravity waves (Allen & Vincent, 1995;Chun et al, 2006;Chun et al, 2007;Hamilton & Vincent, 1995;Ki & Chun, 2010;Sato & Yoshiki, 2008;Wang et al, 2005;Wang & Geller, 2003;Yoo et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics of Atmospheric Turbulence Retrieved From High Vertical‐Resolution Radiosonde Data in the United States

Chun

Wilson

et al. 2019

JGR Atmospheres

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In this study, we estimate atmospheric turbulence in the free atmosphere in terms of the Thorpe scale (LT) and eddy dissipation rate (ε) using U.S. high vertical‐resolution radiosonde data over 4 years (September 2012 to August 2016) at 68 operational stations. In addition, same calculations are conducted for 12 years (October 2005 to September 2017) at four stations among the 68 stations. These high vertical‐resolution radiosonde data have a vertical resolution of approximately 5 m and extend to an altitude of approximately 33 km, and thus, turbulence can be retrieved in the entire troposphere and lower stratosphere. There are thicker and stronger turbulent layers in the troposphere than in the stratosphere, with mean ε values of 1.84 × 10−4 and 1.37 × 10−4 m2/s3 in the troposphere and stratosphere, respectively. The vertical structure of ε exhibits strong seasonal variations, especially in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, with the largest ε values in summer and the smallest in winter. In the horizontal distribution of ε, large ε is seen mainly above the mountainous region in the troposphere, but this pattern is not seen in the stratosphere. Although ε is estimated by the square of LT multiplied by the cube of the Brunt‐Väisälä frequency (N), the regions of large ε are matched with large LT regions where N is relatively small. For the time series of ε near the tropopause for 12 years at four stations, an annual variation is prominent at all stations without significant interannual variations. There is, however, a slightly increasing trend of ε at two stations.

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“…The growth interest in climate change has motivated a renewed attention to radiosonde data since the 1990s. Soon it was realized that the usefulness of radiosonde data archives to investigate climate trends relies on homogenization procedures to overcome biases and sudden shifts arising from instrument changes, reporting practices, and sampling differences (Elliott and Gaffen, 1991;Schwartz and Doswell, 1991;Parker and Cox, 1995;Luers and Eskridge, 1998;Lanzante et al, 2003). Subsequent climate studies based on radiosondes have mostly focused on the detection of climate change in temperature trends (Free and Seidel, 2005;Thorne et al, 2005;Haimberger et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Completeness of radiosonde humidity observations based on the Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive

Ferreira

Nieto

Gimeno

2019

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. Radiosonde measurements from the 1930s to present give unique information on the distribution and variability of water vapor in the troposphere. The sounding data from the Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA) Version 2 are examined here until the end of 2016, aiming to describe the completeness of humidity observations (simultaneous measurements of pressure, temperature, and humidity) in different times and locations. Upon finding the stations with a non-negligible number of radiosonde observations in their period of record, thus removing pilot-balloon stations from IGRA, the selected set (designated IGRA-RS) comprises 1723 stations, including 1300 WMO stations, of which 178 belong to the current GCOS Upper-Air Network (GUAN) and 16 to the GCOS Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN). Completeness of humidity observations for a radiosonde station and a full year is herein defined by five basic parameters: number of humidity soundings, fraction of days with humidity data, average vertical resolution, average atmospheric pressure and altitude at the highest measuring level, and maximum number of consecutive days without data. The observations eligible for calculating precipitable water vapor – i.e., having adequate vertical sampling between the surface and 500 hPa – are particularly studied. The present study presents the global coverage of humidity data and an overall picture of the temporal and vertical completeness parameters over time. This overview indicates that the number of radiosonde stations potentially useful for climate studies involving humidity depends not only on their record length, but also on the continuity, regularity, and vertical sampling of the humidity time series. Additionally, a dataset based on IGRA is described with the purpose of helping climate and environmental scientists to select radiosonde data according to various completeness criteria – even if differences in instrumentation and observing practices require extra attention. This dataset consists of two main subsets: (1) statistical metadata for each IGRA-RS station and year within the period of record; and (2) metadata for individual observations from each station. These are complemented by (3) a list of the stations represented in the whole dataset, along with the observing periods for humidity (relative humidity or dew-point depression) and the corresponding counts of observations. The dataset is to be updated on a 2-year basis, starting in 2019, and is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1332686.

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Enhancing the Data Coverage in the Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive

Cited by 129 publications

References 39 publications

Precipitation From Persistent Extremes is Increasing in Most Regions and Globally

Precipitation From Persistent Extremes is Increasing in Most Regions and Globally

Characteristics of Atmospheric Turbulence Retrieved From High Vertical‐Resolution Radiosonde Data in the United States

Completeness of radiosonde humidity observations based on the Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive

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