Relative Humidity Correction Method of Microwave Radiometer Combined with Cloud Radar

Abstract

The microwave radiometer can detect and retrieve temperature and humidity profiles with high spatial and temporal resolution throughout the day. However, microwave radiometers have few detection frequencies in the middle and upper layers, making them easily affected by clouds. After integrating cloud information into brightness temperature data, the improvement in detection accuracy in the middle and upper layers still remains insufficient, failing to meet accuracy standards required for relative humidity. With the construction of a national ground-based remote sensing vertical profile system, the continuous observation of cloud radar and microwave radiometer at the same site has been achieved, enhancing the spatial and temporal resolution. Combined with the relationship between humidity and cloud formation, a comprehensive quality control method is proposed for relative humidity using cloud radar and microwave radiometer. It plays a crucial role in enhancing the accuracy of humidity profile of microwave radiometer under cloudy conditions.By analyzing the characteristic relationship between the cloud radar reflectivity factor and the radiosonde relative humidity, a piecewise correction method for the microwave radiometer relative humidity of the combined cloud radar is proposed. Error correction results are analyzed using the radiosonde and ERA5 data. It shows that there is a positive linear correlation between the relative humidity and the reflectivity factor, the relative humidity in the middle of the cloud region is approximately saturated, and the relative humidity variation trend with the height of the cloud exit region and the cloud entry region is approximately symmetric about a certain height. Under the condition of stratiform clouds, the root mean square error of relative humidity by microwave radiometer decreases by 7.99% and 8.91% when comparing with radiosonde and ERA5, and the absolute value of median deviation decreases by 12.62% and 13.05%, respectively. The absolute median deviation also decreases. Further investigation indicates the method is also effective under the condition of convection cloud, but the relative humidity in the cloud region after correction is larger than that of sounding and ERA5, and the median deviation changes from negative deviation to positive deviation. Therefore, the relative humidity segment correction method of combing cloud radar can realize the continuous real-time correction of the relative humidity profile of microwave radiometer, which partly improves the observation quality of microwave radiometer under cloud conditions.

Keywords

• microwave radiometer
• millimeter-wave cloud radar
• relative humidity
• cloud