Lidar temperature series in the middle atmosphere as a reference data set – Part 2: Assessment of temperature observations from MLS/Aura and SABER/TIMED satellites
<p>We have compared 2433 nights of Rayleigh lidar temperatures measured at L'Observatoire de Haute Provence (OHP) with co-located temperature measurements from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and the Sounding of the Atmosphere by Broadband Emission Radiometry instrument (SABER). The comp...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2018-12-01
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| Series: | Atmospheric Measurement Techniques |
| Online Access: | https://www.atmos-meas-tech.net/11/6703/2018/amt-11-6703-2018.pdf |
| Summary: | <p>We have compared 2433 nights of Rayleigh lidar temperatures measured at
L'Observatoire de Haute Provence (OHP) with co-located temperature
measurements from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and the Sounding of the
Atmosphere by Broadband Emission Radiometry instrument (SABER). The
comparisons were conducted using data from January 2002 to March 2018 in the
geographic region around the observatory (43.93<span class="inline-formula"><sup>∘</sup></span> N,
5.71<span class="inline-formula"><sup>∘</sup></span> E). We have found systematic differences between the
temperatures measured from the ground-based lidar and those measured from the
satellites, which suggest non-linear distortions in the satellite altitude
retrievals. We see a winter stratopause cold bias in the satellite
measurements with respect to the lidar (<span class="inline-formula">−6</span> K for SABER and <span class="inline-formula">−17</span> K
for MLS), a summer mesospheric warm bias (6 K near 60 km), and a
vertically structured bias for MLS (<span class="inline-formula">−4</span> to 4 K). We have corrected the
stratopause height of the satellite measurements using the lidar temperatures
and have seen an improvement in the comparison. The winter relative cold bias
between the lidar and SABER has been reduced to 1 K in both the stratosphere
and mesosphere and the summer mesospheric warm bias is reduced to 2 K.
Stratopause altitude corrections have reduced the relative cold bias between
the lidar and MLS by 4 K in the early autumn and late spring but were
unable to address the apparent vertical oscillations in the MLS temperature
profiles.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1867-1381 1867-8548 |