Development of the HadISDH.marine humidity climate monitoring dataset
<p>Atmospheric humidity plays an important role in climate analyses. Here we describe the production and key characteristics of a new quasi-global marine humidity product intended for climate monitoring, HadISDH.marine. It is an in situ multivariable marine humidity product, gridded monthly at...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Copernicus Publications
2020-11-01
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| Series: | Earth System Science Data |
| Online Access: | https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/12/2853/2020/essd-12-2853-2020.pdf |
| _version_ | 1828778401425522688 |
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| author | K. M. Willett R. J. H. Dunn J. J. Kennedy D. I. Berry |
| author_facet | K. M. Willett R. J. H. Dunn J. J. Kennedy D. I. Berry |
| author_sort | K. M. Willett |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | <p>Atmospheric humidity plays an important role in climate analyses. Here we
describe the production and key characteristics of a new quasi-global marine humidity product intended for climate monitoring, HadISDH.marine. It is an
in situ multivariable marine humidity product, gridded monthly at a
<span class="inline-formula"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mn mathvariant="normal">5</mn><msup><mi/><mo>∘</mo></msup><mo>×</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">5</mn><msup><mi/><mo>∘</mo></msup></mrow></math><span><svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="34pt" height="11pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="4650d9d0398300a0901bbede1e68549f"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="essd-12-2853-2020-ie00001.svg" width="34pt" height="11pt" src="essd-12-2853-2020-ie00001.png"/></svg:svg></span></span> spatial resolution from January 1973 to
December 2018 with annual updates planned. Currently, only reanalyses
provide up-to-date estimates of marine surface humidity, but there are
concerns over their long-term stability. As a result, this new product makes
a valuable addition to the climate record and will help address some of the
uncertainties around recent changes (e.g. contrasting land and sea trends,
relative-humidity drying). Efforts have been made to quality-control the
data, ensure spatial and temporal homogeneity as far as possible, adjust for
known biases in non-aspirated instruments and ship heights, and also
estimate uncertainty in the data. Uncertainty estimates for whole-number
reporting and for other measurement errors have not been quantified before
for marine humidity. This is a companion product to HadISDH.land, which,
when combined, will provide methodologically consistent land and marine
estimates of surface humidity.</p>
<p>The spatial coverage of HadISDH.marine is good over the Northern Hemisphere
outside of the high latitudes but poor over the Southern Hemisphere,
especially south of 20<span class="inline-formula"><sup>∘</sup></span> S. The trends and variability shown are in
line with overall signals of increasing moisture and warmth over oceans from
theoretical expectations and other products. Uncertainty in the global
average is larger over periods where digital ship metadata are fewer or
unavailable but not large enough to cast doubt over trends in specific
humidity or air temperature. Hence, we conclude that HadISDH.marine is a
useful contribution to our understanding of climate change. However, we note
that our ability to monitor surface humidity with any degree of confidence
depends on the continued availability of ship data and provision of
digitized metadata.</p>
<p>HadISDH.marine data, derived diagnostics, and plots are available at
<span class="uri">http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisdh</span> (last access: June 2019) and <a href="https://doi.org/10.5285/463b2fcd6a264a39b1e3249dab16c177">https://doi.org/10.5285/463b2fcd6a264a39b1e3249dab16c177</a> (Willett et
al., 2020).</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-11T16:41:24Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-616ea333c6fe4a99935b36f618546ca6 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1866-3508 1866-3516 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-11T16:41:24Z |
| publishDate | 2020-11-01 |
| publisher | Copernicus Publications |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Earth System Science Data |
| spelling | doaj.art-616ea333c6fe4a99935b36f618546ca62022-12-22T00:58:19ZengCopernicus PublicationsEarth System Science Data1866-35081866-35162020-11-01122853288010.5194/essd-12-2853-2020Development of the HadISDH.marine humidity climate monitoring datasetK. M. Willett0R. J. H. Dunn1J. J. Kennedy2D. I. Berry3Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UKMet Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UKMet Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UKNational Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK<p>Atmospheric humidity plays an important role in climate analyses. Here we describe the production and key characteristics of a new quasi-global marine humidity product intended for climate monitoring, HadISDH.marine. It is an in situ multivariable marine humidity product, gridded monthly at a <span class="inline-formula"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mn mathvariant="normal">5</mn><msup><mi/><mo>∘</mo></msup><mo>×</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">5</mn><msup><mi/><mo>∘</mo></msup></mrow></math><span><svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="34pt" height="11pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="4650d9d0398300a0901bbede1e68549f"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="essd-12-2853-2020-ie00001.svg" width="34pt" height="11pt" src="essd-12-2853-2020-ie00001.png"/></svg:svg></span></span> spatial resolution from January 1973 to December 2018 with annual updates planned. Currently, only reanalyses provide up-to-date estimates of marine surface humidity, but there are concerns over their long-term stability. As a result, this new product makes a valuable addition to the climate record and will help address some of the uncertainties around recent changes (e.g. contrasting land and sea trends, relative-humidity drying). Efforts have been made to quality-control the data, ensure spatial and temporal homogeneity as far as possible, adjust for known biases in non-aspirated instruments and ship heights, and also estimate uncertainty in the data. Uncertainty estimates for whole-number reporting and for other measurement errors have not been quantified before for marine humidity. This is a companion product to HadISDH.land, which, when combined, will provide methodologically consistent land and marine estimates of surface humidity.</p> <p>The spatial coverage of HadISDH.marine is good over the Northern Hemisphere outside of the high latitudes but poor over the Southern Hemisphere, especially south of 20<span class="inline-formula"><sup>∘</sup></span> S. The trends and variability shown are in line with overall signals of increasing moisture and warmth over oceans from theoretical expectations and other products. Uncertainty in the global average is larger over periods where digital ship metadata are fewer or unavailable but not large enough to cast doubt over trends in specific humidity or air temperature. Hence, we conclude that HadISDH.marine is a useful contribution to our understanding of climate change. However, we note that our ability to monitor surface humidity with any degree of confidence depends on the continued availability of ship data and provision of digitized metadata.</p> <p>HadISDH.marine data, derived diagnostics, and plots are available at <span class="uri">http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisdh</span> (last access: June 2019) and <a href="https://doi.org/10.5285/463b2fcd6a264a39b1e3249dab16c177">https://doi.org/10.5285/463b2fcd6a264a39b1e3249dab16c177</a> (Willett et al., 2020).</p>https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/12/2853/2020/essd-12-2853-2020.pdf |
| spellingShingle | K. M. Willett R. J. H. Dunn J. J. Kennedy D. I. Berry Development of the HadISDH.marine humidity climate monitoring dataset Earth System Science Data |
| title | Development of the HadISDH.marine humidity climate monitoring dataset |
| title_full | Development of the HadISDH.marine humidity climate monitoring dataset |
| title_fullStr | Development of the HadISDH.marine humidity climate monitoring dataset |
| title_full_unstemmed | Development of the HadISDH.marine humidity climate monitoring dataset |
| title_short | Development of the HadISDH.marine humidity climate monitoring dataset |
| title_sort | development of the hadisdh marine humidity climate monitoring dataset |
| url | https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/12/2853/2020/essd-12-2853-2020.pdf |
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