Consistency between GRUAN sondes, LBLRTM and IASI

Abstract

Abstract. Radiosonde soundings from the GRUAN data record are shown to be consistent with IASI measured radiances via the LBLRTM radiative transfer model in the part of the spectrum that is mostly affected by water vapour absorption in the upper troposphere (from 700 hPa up). This result is key to have consistency between radiosonde and satellite measurements for climate data records, since GRUAN, IASI and LBLRTM constitute reference measurements in each of their fields. This is specially the case for night time radiosonde measurements. Although the sample size is small (16 cases), day time GRUAN radiosonde measurements seem to have a small dry bias of 2.5 % in absolute terms of relative humidity, located mainly in the upper troposphere, with respect to LBLRTM and IASI.