Correction of Variation due to Non-Hydrostatic Effects The Observed Temperature in Upper-Air Sounding

TL;DR

This paper proposes an algorithm to correct temperature measurements in upper-air sounding by accounting for non-hydrostatic effects caused by atmospheric oscillations, improving the accuracy of temperature and height data.

Contribution

A novel correction algorithm that adjusts radiosonde temperature and height data for non-hydrostatic atmospheric effects using polynomial displacement and lapse rate calculations.

Findings

Correction errors can reach over 10°C without adjustment.

The algorithm effectively reduces temperature measurement errors.

Improves the accuracy of upper-air temperature and height data.

Abstract

There are a lot of oscillatory motions of various kinds in the atmosphere, for example, internal gravity waves (IGW), which have a period less than the time of flight of the radiosonde. Oscillatory motions lead to adiabatic cooling during the shift of air mass upwards from equilibrium or heat when shifting down. The magnitude and sign of the shift from the equilibrium state of a specific volume of air at the time of measurements by radiosonde are unknown. Therefore the displacement of measured (essentially instantaneous) temperature is unknown relative to the equilibrium temperature. These errors in some cases can reach values of 10 degrees or more. The algorithm for correcting of these effects is proposed. The algorithm of correction calculates the shift of the vertical displacement of the radiosonde from the polynomial curve. The correction for temperature is calculated as a product of the dry adiabatic lapse rate and the shift of the radiosonde altitude. The result is subtracted from the measured temperature. The observed height is corrected in dependence of the shift value.