An Assessment of the Temperature and Humidity of Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) v6 Profiles Using Radiosonde Data in the Lee of the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) products are important for weather prediction and climate monitoring in the lee of the Tibetan Plateau (TP), where the terrain is complex. However, the quality of the AIRS products in this region remains unclear due to the unavailability of upper-air observation. In this study, for the first time, we use an 8-year intensive radiosonde observation dataset from 11 sites to assess the quality of the AIRS version 6 products in the lee of the TP at both daytime and nighttime. The results indicate that, overall, the AIRS products have a dry and cold bias in the lee of the TP, and larger biases over the sites of higher altitude. AIRS temperature retrieval has a larger deficiency in low levels at nighttime, while a better representation of moisture is found below 600 hPa over the low-altitude sites. In the lee of the TP, the quality control flags for temperature and moisture should be considered individually. The AIRS profile products could be useful for synoptic analysis of air temperature, moisture, and climate monitoring in this region, and further improvements are needed in the near-surface and nighttime retrieval processes.

Keywords

• Tibetan Plateau
• complex terrain
• Atmospheric Infrared Sounder
• radiosonde