Performance of the Ionospheric Kappa‐Correction of Radio Occultation Profiles Under Diverse Ionization and Solar Activity Conditions

Abstract

Abstract The kappa‐correction is an easy‐to‐use method to correct for residual ionospheric errors in radio occultation (RO) data. It is a simple empirical model term that only depends on readily available data. While its basic utility was well proven in previous studies, including a recent predecessor study on RO climatologies under solar cycle variations, its performance for individual RO profile correction under diverse and extreme ionization conditions is unclear so far. Here we tackle this gap and focus on investigating (extremely) low and high solar activity and ionization conditions of individual RO events, including inspection of ionospheric symmetry between inbound and outbound raypaths. Using a global multi‐year ensemble of MetOp‐A and GRACE‐A RO events over 2008–2015 as basis, we applied a sampling approach leading to six characteristic condition cases. These cases also relate to day and night time variations and geographic variations from the equatorial to the high latitude region. We inspected the kappa‐correction and its performance relative to the standard bending angle correction for RO‐retrieved stratospheric profiles and found mean deviations in temperature of near −0.3 K in the upper stratosphere (40–45 km) for high ionization conditions, with extreme deviations exceeding −2 K for strong inbound/outbound asymmetry. The kappa‐correction term itself reaches a mean value near 0.05 μrad under these high conditions. Low solar activity and ionization conditions lead to a mean correction smaller than 0.005 μrad and mean temperature deviations smaller than 0.02 K. An intercomparison to other quality datasets, predominantly showed a decrease in mean temperature difference when applying the kappa‐correction.

Keywords

• kappa‐correction
• radio occulation
• residual ionospheric errors
• stratospheric data quality