Comparative Analysis of Binhu and Cosmic-2 Radio Occultation Data

Abstract

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) technology has been widely used in Earth atmospheric detection and has a significant impact on numerical weather prediction (NWP), climate detection, and other fields. Cosmic-2 LEO-1 (C2E1) is a well-known RO data provider; however, its observations are confined to 45°S and 45°N. Recently, the Binhu meteorological observation test satellite (BH) has provided global coverage of RO data, including refractivity, specific humidity, and temperature data. In this study, RO data from BH and C2E1 are analyzed and compared from 8 February 2022 to 17 February 2022. Employing the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis (ERA-5) data as a reference, both BH and C2E1 RO data agree with the ERA data, with the refractivity, temperature, and specific humidity profiles reflecting the real conditions of the natural atmosphere. In addition, BH data are comparable to C2E1 data at low and middle latitudes (0–45°), and BH data at middle and high latitudes (45–90°) are of better quality than those at low and middle latitudes (0–45°). For example, without considering the errors introduced by the interpolation of the ERA-5 data for comparative analysis, the BH refractivity profiles show a mean absolute bias of 0.73 N at low and middle latitudes and only 0.23 N at middle and high latitudes, and that for BH specific humidity profiles at middle and high latitudes is 0.015 g/kg, which is only half of that at low and middle latitudes. The BH temperature and specific humidity data show promising data accuracy. Therefore, BH RO data may provide important supplementary data at higher latitudes and may improve future NWPs through assimilation.