Ulrich Leiterer

Ice supersaturation in the tropopause region over Lindenberg, Germany

The occurrence of ice-supersaturation layers (in either clear air or in cirrus) over the Meteorological Observatory Lindenberg is investigated for the period February 2000 to April 2001 by means of the humidity, temperature, and pressure reports obtained from the Lindenberg corrected RS80A routine radiosonde. The RS80A routine sonde data are corrected on the basis of weekly comparison ascents with Lindenberg research radiosonde humidity data. This research sonde applies the Lindenberg measuring and evaluation technique of standardized frequencies. We study the frequency of occurrence of ice supersaturation in the tropopause region over Lindenberg, the vertical distribution of ice-supersaturation layers in the upper troposphere and lowermost stratosphere, their situation relative to the tropopause, their vertical dimensions, their temperatures and the statistical distribution of relative humidities. The mean frequency of occurrence of ice-supersaturation layers is about 28%. Most of them occur within a broad layer extending 200 hPa down from the tropopause. Most events occur in cold air with temperature below -40°C. Their vertical extensions can be fitted by a pair of Weibull distributions with mean 560 ± 610 m. The results are compared with findings from the MOZAIC project, from the SAGE II satellite instrument, and with various results from Lidar measurements.

Pressure and Temperature Differences between Vaisala RS80 and RS92 Radiosonde Systems

Abstract In several twin flight campaigns, Vaisala RS80 radiosonde systems report lower temperatures than Vaisala RS92 systems in the daytime. Simultaneous differences increase from less than 0.1 K at pressure altitudes below 100 hPa to 0.7 K at 10 hPa. Much of the difference can be explained by an overcorrection of the RS80 radiation error. At night, RS92 and RS80 sounding systems report very similar simultaneous temperatures throughout the atmosphere. Geopotential heights from RS92 pressure, temperature, and humidity data (pTU heights) are within 25 m of geopotential heights from the RS92 global positioning system data (GPS heights) from the ground up to about 70 hPa. At higher altitudes, RS92 sondes produced after July 2004 show nearly identical pTU and GPS heights, but other manufacturing batches show systematic differences, up to ±100 m near 10 hPa. RS80 sondes provide much less accurate pressure and geopotential height. On average, they give up to 1 hPa higher pressure and 20 m lower pTU heights tha...

Volcanic perturbation of the atmosphere in both polar regions: 1991–1994

Long-term measurements by sunphotometers of the spectral dependence of aerosol optical depth are reported for several sites in the Arctic and Antarctic for the period January 1991 through December 1994. In the Antarctic a pronounced increase of atmospheric turbidity was observed at the end of September 1991. The observed wavelength dependence in aerosol optical depth indicated that the increase was due to the presence of fresh and therefore small stratospheric aerosol particles associated with the eruption of Cerro Hudson in August 1991. After the breakdown of the polar vortex in mid-November 1991 we measured a second significant increase of the aerosol optical depth. At this time the 1.0-μm aerosol optical depth was approximately 0.12 or about 10 times background levels. This second incrcase is shown to be the result of the influx of Mount Pinatubo aerosols. A similar perturbation of the aerosol optical depth was observed in the Arctic with the return of sunlight in March 1992. However, the increased loading of the Arctic stratosphere by the Pinatubo aerosols was already evident at high northern latitudes in satellite measurements at the end of 1991. Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment II stratospheric 1.0-μm optical depth measurements show that meridional transport of Pinatubo aerosol from equatorial to middle and higher latitudes is greatest in the winter/spring hemisphere. This observation explains the observed seasonal trend of aerosol optical depth during the posteruption. A significant decrease of the perturbation by Mount Pinatubo aerosol was observed in both polar regions by the end of 1994. The measured 1.0-μm aerosol optical depths at this time were only 0.04 ; these values exceed the background level by about 0.01-0.02. Therefore the aerosol optical depth values are still slightly higher than during undisturbed conditions. In addition, we show that the occurrence of volcanic aerosols caused changes in the spectral dependence of the aerosol optical depth in the Arctic and the Antarctic. These variations, including the changes in the aerosol size distribution, derived from the aerosol optical depth, are discussed in comparison to undisturbed conditions.

Comparison of trends in the tropospheric and stratospheric aerosol optical depths in the Antarctic

Temporal variations of the aerosol optical depth of the Antarctic troposphere and stratosphere are considered on the basis of long-term Sun photometer and actinometer measurements which have been made at Mirny and Georg Forster stations since 1956 and 1988, respectively. This data is supplemented by measurements of the stratospheric aerosol optical depth by the satellite-borne stratospheric aerosol measurement II instrument. These observations indicate that under undisturbed conditions, the stratospheric aerosol optical depth represents approximately 25% of the total atmospheric aerosol optical depth. The aerosol optical depth in the Antarctic is most notably affected by volcanic eruptions, such as El Chichon in 1982 and Mount Pinatubo and Cerro Hudson in 1991, and by the occurrence of polar stratospheric clouds during Antarctic winter and spring. Apart from these episodic events, no long-term trend in the aerosol optical depth can be discerned from the nearly 40-year record.

Correction Method for RS80-A Humicap Humidity Profiles and Their Validation by Lidar Backscattering Profiles in Tropical Cirrus Clouds

Abstract Routine radiosonde relative humidity (RH) measurements are not reliable as they are presently used in the global upper-air network. The new Lindenberg measuring and evaluation method, which provides RH profile measurements with an accuracy of ±1% RΗ in the temperature range from 35° to −70°C near the tropical tropopause is described. This Standardized Frequencies (FN) method uses a thin-film capacitive polymer sensor of a modified RS90-H Humicap radiosonde. These research humidity reference radiosondes (FN sondes) are used to develop a correction method for operational RS80-A Humicap humidity profiles. All steps of correction and quality control for RS80-A radiosondes are shown: ground-check correction, time-lag and temperature-dependent correction, and the recognition of icing during the ascent. The results of a statistical comparison between FN sondes and RS80-A sondes are presented. Corrected humidity data of operational RS80-A sondes used in Lindenberg (4 times daily) show no bias when compar...

Tropospheric Comparisons of Vaisala Radiosondes and Balloon-Borne Frost-Point and Lyman-α Hygrometers during the LAUTLOS-WAVVAP Experiment

Abstract The accuracy of all types of Vaisala radiosondes and two types of Snow White chilled-mirror hygrosondes was assessed in an intensive in situ comparison with reference hygrometers. Fourteen nighttime reference comparisons were performed to determine a working reference for the radiosonde comparisons. These showed that the night version of the Snow White agreed best with the references [i.e., the NOAA frost-point hygrometer (FPH) and University of Colorado cryogenic frost-point hygrometer (CFH)], but that the daytime version had severe problems with contamination in the humid upper troposphere. Since the RS92 performance was superior to the other radiosondes and to the day version of the Snow White, it was selected to be the working reference. According to the reference comparison, the RS92 has no bias in the mid- and lower troposphere, with deviations <±5% in relative humidity (RH). In the upper troposphere, the RS92 has a ∼5% RH wet bias, which is partly due to the RS92 time lag error and the ter...

High accuracy humidity measurements using the standardized frequency method with a research upper-air sounding system

Water vapour is the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. The knowledge of water vapour distribution is of great importance for both operational purposes and climatological investigations. Several years ago the method of standardized frequencies was developed at Lindenberg Observatory of Deutscher Wetterdienst for the calculation of relative humidity (hereinafter RH) profiles measured with a H-Humicap research sonde type based on Vaisalas RS90 operational radiosonde. Firstly, this paper presents the further improvement of that method and gives a description of the method and of the calibration technique. RH profiles in the troposphere can be determined using the method of standardized frequencies with an absolute accuracy of 1% RH. The resolution of those humidity measurements is 0.01% RH. Results of about 70 radiosonde ascents are presented and as an example one ascent is compared to Lidar RH measurements. Secondly, a correction function for humidity profiles measured with RS80 A-Humicap (world-wide used operational radiosonde) is presented in this paper. It can also be applied to historical RS80 data sets. The third aim of this paper is to give some prospects/possibilities for relative humidity measurements in the stratosphere. Further investigations are necessary to improve our calibration model for humidity measurements in the upper stratosphere, especially at pressure levels lower than 200 hPa.

Atmospheric boundary layer monitoring at the Meteorological Observatory Lindenberg as a part of the Lindenberg Column: Facilities and selected results

Systematic aerological soundings and related technological development and scientific interpretation have been performed at the Meteorological Observatory Lindenberg (MOL) since the beginning of the last century. These activities were always connected with the practical demands of weather forecasting and of climatological research. During the last decade the reduction of the grid size in numerical weather prediction models, the requirements of nowcasting and an increasingly detailed physical description of the climate system in numerical models created the need for comprehensive data on land surface and boundary layer processes. Taking into account this tendency, new experimental facilities for boundary layer investigations were installed at the MOL in addition to the complex on ground-based remote sensing systems and standard radiosoundings. These include a special boundary layer field site (in German: Grenzschichtmessfeld = GM), networks of energy budget stations, rain gauges and radiation sensors and a large-aperture scintillometer. These facilities are briefly characterised and a few examples from continuous long-term measurements and from case studies of boundary layer parameters are presented. The boundary layer measurements as an integral part of the observatorys monitoring program supplemented by measuring campaigns are an important contribution to the DWD-strategy observation and simulation. They have been the basis for the integration of the MOL as a reference site within different international research programs steered by WMO-WCRP.

BAS—The project of an earth-atmosphere spectrophotometer for basic research☆

Abstract The earth-atmosphere spectrophotometer BAS is intended to be used for basic research in the field of remote sensing. The main advantages of BAS are the possibility of a high-accuracy calibration in absolute units utilizing the extraterrestrial spectral solar energy distribution and its simultaneous use for radiance and for irradiance measurements, e.g. the same spectrophotometer BAS to measure immediately one after the other the high irradiances of the sun (transmission measurement) and very low radiances of water surfaces. Data evaluation will be made immediately by the BAS-linked computer for field measurements. Further important technical parameters of BAS are the scanning of the spectral range 0.38 to 1.12 μm in 40 steps within 3 s, low mass of about 4 kg, power supply by rechargeable battery pack. BAS is also suited for measurements to be made from airborne and shipborne platforms. Different applications are shown by some examples.

Measurements of the optical depth and retrieval of aerosol parametersin the polar regions

Abstract Measurements of the direct sunlight in the UV/VIS have been performed in the Arctic, theAntarctica and Germany to obtain the aerosol optical depth. The aerosol optical depth has been inverted in two ways to get the aerosol size distribution. The results show that in the Arctic due to the continental influence the values for the aerosol optical depth and for the number and size of aerosols are much higher than in the Antarctica. In both regions aerosol fluctuations and bimodal distributions can be observed.