Overview of the Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive

This paper provides a general description of the Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA), a new radiosonde dataset from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). IGRA consists of radiosonde and pilot balloon observations at more than 1500 globally distributed stations with varying periods of record, many of which extend from the 1960s to present. Observations include pressure, temperature, geopotential height, dewpoint depression, wind direction, and wind speed at standard, surface, tropopause, and significant levels. IGRA contains quality-assured data from 11 different sources. Rigorous procedures are employed to ensure proper station identification, eliminate duplicate levels within soundings, and select one sounding for every station, date, and time. The quality assurance algorithms check for format problems, physically implausible values, internal inconsistencies among variables, runs of values across soundings and levels, climatological outliers, and temporal and vertical inconsistencies in temperature. The performance of the various checks was evaluated by careful inspection of selected soundings and time series. In its final form, IGRA is the largest and most comprehensive dataset of quality-assured radiosonde observations freely available. Its temporal and spatial coverage is most complete over the United States, western Europe, Russia, and Australia. The vertical resolution and extent of soundings improve significantly over time, with nearly three-quarters of all soundings reaching up to at least 100 hPa by 2003. IGRA data are updated on a daily basis and are available online from NCDC as both individual soundings and monthly means.

[1]  D. Seidel,et al.  Using first differences to reduce inhomogeneity in radiosonde temperature datasets , 2004 .

[2]  A. Sterl,et al.  The ERA‐40 re‐analysis , 2005 .

[3]  S. Brönnimann.  A historical upper air‐data set for the 1939–44 period , 2003 .

[4]  S. M. Loehrer,et al.  TOGA COARE Upper-Air Sounding Data Archive: Development and Quality Control Procedures , 1996 .

[5]  William G. Collins,et al.  The Operational Complex Quality Control of Radiosonde Heights and Temperatures at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Part II: Examples of Error Diagnosis and Correction from Operational Use , 2001 .

[6]  R. Vose,et al.  An Overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network Temperature Database , 1997 .

[7]  Jonathan D. W. Kahl,et al.  In Situ Meteorological Sounding Archives for Arctic Studies , 1992 .

[8]  Thomas C. Peterson,et al.  Radiosonde Atmospheric Temperature Products for Assessing Climate (RATPAC): A new data set of large‐area anomaly time series , 2005 .

[9]  R. Reynolds,et al.  The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project , 1996, Renewable Energy.

[10]  William G. Collins,et al.  Two Years of Operational Comprehensive Hydrostatic Quality Control at the National Meteorological Center , 1993 .

[11]  Barry E. Schwartz,et al.  North American Rawinsonde Observations: Problems, Concerns, and a Call to Action , 1991 .

[12]  Improving the Usefulness of Operational Radiosonde Data , 2005 .

[13]  Peter W. Thorne,et al.  Revisiting radiosonde upper air temperatures from 1958 to 2002 , 2005 .

[14]  L. Gandin,et al.  Complex Quality Control of Meteorological Observations , 1988 .

[15]  John R. Lanzante,et al.  Temporal Homogenization of Monthly Radiosonde Temperature Data. Part I: Methodology , 2003 .

[16]  W. Elliott,et al.  On the Utility of Radiosonde Humidity Archives for climate studies , 1991 .

[17]  John R. Christy,et al.  Creating Climate Reference Datasets: CARDS Workshop on Adjusting Radiosonde Temperature Data for Climate Monitoring. , 2002 .

[18]  William G. Collins,et al.  The Operational Complex Quality Control of Radiosonde Heights and Temperatures at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Part I: Description of the Method , 2001 .

[19]  Thomas C. Peterson,et al.  First difference method: Maximizing station density for the calculation of long‐term global temperature change , 1998 .

[20]  Robert E. Eskridge,et al.  A comprehensive aerological reference data set (CARDS): Rough and systematic errors , 1995 .

[21]  John R. Lanzante,et al.  Resistant, Robust and Non-Parametric Techniques for the Analysis of Climate Data: Theory and Examples, Including Applications to Historical Radiosonde Station Data , 1996 .

[22]  Francis J. Schmidlin,et al.  Upper-Air Measurements and Instrumentation Workshop , 1991 .

[23]  W. Elliott,et al.  Recent Changes in NWS Upper-Air Observations with Emphasis on Changes from VIZ to Vaisala Radiosondes , 2002 .

[24]  S. Klein,et al.  Temporal Homogenization of Monthly Radiosonde Temperature Data. Part II: Trends, Sensitivities, and MSU Comparison. , 2003 .

[25]  C. Grassotti,et al.  On Differences in Radiosonde Humidity-Reporting Practices and Their Implications for Numerical Weather Prediction and Remote Sensing , 1992 .

[26]  D. Gaffen,et al.  Temporal inhomogeneities in radiosonde temperature records , 1994 .