Dry Bias in Vaisala RS90 Radiosonde Humidity Profiles over Antarctica

Abstract

Abstract Middle to upper tropospheric humidity plays a large role in determining terrestrial outgoing longwave radiation. Much work has gone into improving the accuracy of humidity measurements made by radiosondes. Some radiosonde humidity sensors experience a dry bias caused by solar heating. During the austral summers of 2002/03 and 2003/04 at Dome C, Antarctica, Vaisala RS90 radiosondes were launched in clear skies at solar zenith angles (SZAs) near 83° and 62°. As part of this field experiment, the Polar Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (PAERI) measured downwelling spectral infrared radiance. The radiosonde humidity profiles are used in the simulation of the downwelling radiances. The radiosonde dry bias is then determined by scaling the humidity profile with a height-independent factor to obtain the best agreement between the measured and simulated radiances in microwindows between strong water vapor lines from 530 to 560 cm−1 and near line centers from 1100 to 1300 cm−1. The dry biases, as relative errors in relative humidity, are 8% ± 5% (microwindows; 1σ) and 9% ± 3% (line centers) for SZAs near 83°; they are 20% ± 6% and 24% ± 5% for SZAs near 62°. Assuming solar heating is minimal at SZAs near 83°, the authors remove errors that are unrelated to solar heating and find the solar-radiation dry bias of 9 RS90 radiosondes at SZAs near 62° to be 12% ± 6% (microwindows) and 15% ± 5% (line centers). Systematic errors in the correction are estimated to be 3% and 2% for microwindows and line centers, respectively. These corrections apply to atmospheric pressures between 650 and 200 mb.