Abstract

Abstract. We have compared 2433 nights of Rayleigh lidar temperatures measured at L'Observatoire de Haute Provence (OHP) with co-located temperature measurements from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and the Sounding of the Atmosphere by Broadband Emission Radiometry instrument (SABER). The comparisons were conducted using data from January 2002 to March 2018 in the geographic region around the observatory (43.93∘ N, 5.71∘ E). We have found systematic differences between the temperatures measured from the ground-based lidar and those measured from the satellites, which suggest non-linear distortions in the satellite altitude retrievals. We see a winter stratopause cold bias in the satellite measurements with respect to the lidar (−6 K for SABER and −17 K for MLS), a summer mesospheric warm bias (6 K near 60 km), and a vertically structured bias for MLS (−4 to 4 K). We have corrected the stratopause height of the satellite measurements using the lidar temperatures and have seen an improvement in the comparison. The winter relative cold bias between the lidar and SABER has been reduced to 1 K in both the stratosphere and mesosphere and the summer mesospheric warm bias is reduced to 2 K. Stratopause altitude corrections have reduced the relative cold bias between the lidar and MLS by 4 K in the early autumn and late spring but were unable to address the apparent vertical oscillations in the MLS temperature profiles.

Highlights

  • Satellite atmospheric measurements are vital for providing global assessments of long-term atmospheric temperature trends

  • Rayleigh lidar remote sounding of atmospheric density and temperature is an excellent tool for use in validating satellite measurements over a specified geographic area and vertical range

  • 4 Temperature comparisons without considering vertical offset Here we demonstrate the directly calculated temperature biases between Observatoire de Haute Provence (OHP) and both SABER and Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS), which are present before we carry out the adjustment for satellite altitude offsets which are discussed in Sect

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Summary

Introduction

Satellite atmospheric measurements are vital for providing global assessments of long-term atmospheric temperature trends. Particular care must be taken to validate each new satellite as well as provide periodic ground checks for the entire instrument lifetime in order to counter drifts in calibration and local measurement time (Wuebbles et al, 2016). Changes in satellite measurements can occur over the course of a mission due to instrument degradation, calibration uncertainties, orbit changes, and errors and/or assumptions in the forward model parameters. Most mission planning agencies have guidelines which require that satellite programs conduct formal validation studies to ensure accuracy and stability of the measurements (Council, 2007). Rayleigh lidar remote sounding of atmospheric density and temperature is an excellent tool for use in validating satellite measurements over a specified geographic area and vertical range. There are two key strengths in the Rayleigh lidar technique which set it apart from other atmospheric sounders

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