On the use of radiosonde humidity observations in mid-latitude NWP

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We compare radiosonde observations of relative humidity with NWP versions of the Meteorological Office Unified Model, and attempt to understand the causes of the systematic differences seen. The differences are found to have a different structure in cyclonic and anticyclonic situations over the UK. In cyclonic situations the mid-tropospheric temperature and humidity differences could be due to model biases, consistent with the conservation of energy; the latent heating from precipitation of the model's excess moisture would remove the model's cold bias. There is also some evidence for observational bias. Wetting of the sonde sensor in cloud can cause a moist bias at higher levels. The Vaisala RS80 sonde also appears to have a dry bias near saturation.