Introducing an Approach for Extracting Temperature from Aircraft GNSS and Pressure Altitude Reports in ADS-B Messages

Stone, E.C.; Kitchen, M.

doi:10.1175/jtech-d-14-00192.1

Cited by 15 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The derived temperatures are of lower quality due to the method of derivation de Haan (2011). Another method to derive temperature information has been developed by Stone and Kitchen (2015) where the height and pressure information available in Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) was exploited to estimate a mean-layer temperature. They found that a meanlayer temperature of a 2 km thick layer can be obtained with an error of around 1 K.…”

Section: Aircraft-derived Data (Mode-s Ehs)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimates of Mode-S EHS aircraft-derived wind observation errors using triple collocation

Haan

2016

Atmos. Meas. Tech.

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Abstract. Information on the accuracy of meteorological observation is essential to assess the applicability of the measurements. In general, accuracy information is difficult to obtain in operational situations, since the truth is unknown. One method to determine this accuracy is by comparison with the model equivalent of the observation. The advantage of this method is that all measured parameters can be evaluated, from 2 m temperature observation to satellite radiances. The drawback is that these comparisons also contain the (unknown) model error. By applying the so-called triple-collocation method (Stoffelen, 1998), on two independent observations at the same location in space and time, combined with model output, and assuming uncorrelated observations, the three error variances can be estimated. This method is applied in this study to estimate wind observation errors from aircraft, obtained utilizing information from air traffic control surveillance radar with Selective Mode Enhanced Surveillance capabilities (Mode-S EHS, see de Haan, 2011). Radial wind measurements from Doppler weather radar and wind vector measurements from sodar, together with equivalents from a non-hydrostatic numerical weather prediction model, are used to assess the accuracy of the Mode-S EHS wind observations. The Mode-S EHS wind (zonal and meridional) observation error is estimated to be less than 1.4 ± 0.1 m s −1 near the surface and around 1.1 ± 0.3 m s −1 at 500 hPa.

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Section: Aircraft-derived Data (Mode-s Ehs)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimates of Mode-S EHS aircraft-derived wind observation errors using triple collocation

Haan

2016

Atmos. Meas. Tech.

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“…Stone and Kitchen () showed that a mean temperature for a layer of thickness 2,000 m could be computed using the global navigation satellite system's altitude reported by an aircraft's automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS‐B) system. However, this method for determining thickness temperature is too coarse to resolve a temperature inversion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, de Haan (2011), Mirza et al (2016), Mirza (2017, table 6.2) and Stone (2017) suggest that the uncertainty in the derived temperature from a single aircraft at low levels can range between 2 and 10 K. This degree of uncertainty makes it difficult to locate the height and magnitude of the temperature inversion. Stone and Kitchen (2015) showed that a mean temperature for a layer of thickness 2,000 m could be computed using the global navigation satellite system's altitude reported by an aircraft's automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) system. However, this method for determining thickness temperature is too coarse to resolve a temperature inversion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards operational use of aircraft‐derived observations: a case study at London Heathrow airport

Mirza

Ballard

Dance

et al. 2019

Meteorological Applications

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Mode‐Selective Enhanced Surveillance (Mode‐S EHS) aircraft reports can be collected at a low cost and are readily available around busy airports. The new work presented here demonstrates that observations derived from Mode‐S EHS reports can be used to study the evolution of temperature inversions since the data have a high spatial and temporal frequency. This is illustrated by a case study centred around London Heathrow airport for the period January 4–5, 2015. Using Mode‐S EHS reports from multiple aircraft and after applying quality control criteria, vertical temperature profiles are constructed by aggregating these reports at discrete intervals between the surface and 3,000 m. To improve these derived temperatures, four smoothing methods using low‐pass filters are evaluated. The effect of smoothing reduces the variance in the aircraft derived temperature by approximately half. After smoothing, the temperature variance between the altitudes 3,000 and 1,000 m is 1–2 K; below 1,000 m, it is 2–4 K. Although the differences between the four smoothing methods are small, exponential smoothing is favoured because it uses all available Mode‐S EHS reports. The resulting vertical profiles may be useful in operational meteorology for identifying elevated temperature inversions above 1,000 m. However, below 1,000 m they are less useful because of the reduced precision of the reported Mach number. A better source of in situ temperature observations would be for aircraft to use the meteorological reporting function of their automatic dependent surveillance system.

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“…There are three types of reports from which meteorological observations may be obtained: Mode‐S EHS reports contain information on the aircraft's state vector. This vector can be used to derive estimates of the air temperature and horizontal wind at the aircraft's location (Collinson, ; de Haan, ). Mode‐S Meteorological Routine Aircraft Reports (MRAR) contain temperature and horizontal wind observations computed by the aircraft's FMS (Strajnar, ). Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS‐B, a sub‐system of Mode‐S EHS) contain aircraft position and altitude from which a mean temperature and wind vector may be computed (de Leege et al , ; Stone and Kitchen, ). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(b) Mode-S Meteorological Routine Aircraft Reports (MRAR) contain temperature and horizontal wind observations computed by the aircraft's FMS (Strajnar, 2012). (c) Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B, a sub-system of Mode-S EHS) contain aircraft position and altitude from which a mean temperature and wind vector may be computed (de Leege et al, 2012;Stone and Kitchen, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of aircraft‐derived observations with in situ research aircraft measurements

Mirza

Ballard

Dance

et al. 2016

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

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Mode Selective Enhanced Surveillance (Mode‐S EHS) reports are aircraft‐based observations that have value in numerical weather prediction (NWP). These reports contain the aircraft's state vector in terms of its speed, direction, altitude and Mach number. Using the state vector, meteorological observations of temperature and horizontal wind can be derived. However, Mode‐S EHS processing reduces the precision of the state vector from 16‐bit to 10‐bit binary representation. We use full precision data from research‐grade instruments, on board the UK's Facility for Atmospheric Airborne Measurements, to emulate Mode‐S EHS reports and to compare with derived observations. We aim to understand the observation errors due to the reduced precision of Mode‐S EHS reports. We derive error models to estimate these observation errors. The temperature error increases from 1.25 to 2.5 K between an altitude of 10 km and the surface due to its dependency on Mach number and also Mode‐S EHS precision. For the cases studied, the zonal wind error is around 0.50 m s−1 and the meridional wind error is 0.25 m s−1. The wind is also subject to systematic errors that are directionally dependent. We conclude that Mode‐S EHS‐derived horizontal winds are suitable for data assimilation in high‐resolution NWP. Temperature reports may be usable when aggregated from multiple aircraft. While these reduced precision, high‐frequency data provide useful, albeit noisy, observations, direct reports of the higher‐precision data would be preferable.

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Introducing an Approach for Extracting Temperature from Aircraft GNSS and Pressure Altitude Reports in ADS-B Messages

Cited by 15 publications

References 11 publications

Estimates of Mode-S EHS aircraft-derived wind observation errors using triple collocation

Estimates of Mode-S EHS aircraft-derived wind observation errors using triple collocation

Towards operational use of aircraft‐derived observations: a case study at London Heathrow airport

Comparison of aircraft‐derived observations with in situ research aircraft measurements

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