Identification

Title

The three-cornered hat method for estimating error variances of three or more atmospheric data sets – Part II: Evaluating radio occultation and radiosonde observations, global model forecasts, and reanalyses

Abstract

We apply the three-cornered hat (3CH) method to estimate refractivity, bending angle, and specific humidity error variances for a number of datasets widely used in research and/or operations: radiosondes, radio occultation (COSMIC, COSMIC-2), NCEP global forecasts, and nine reanalyses. We use a large number and combinations of datasets to obtain insights into the impact of the error correlations among different datasets that affect 3CH estimates. Error correlations may be caused by actual correlations of errors, representativeness differences, or imperfect collocation of the datasets. We show that the 3CH method discriminates among the datasets and how error statistics of observations compare to state-of-the-art reanalyses and forecasts, as well as reanalyses that do not assimilate satellite data. We explore results for October and November 2006 and 2019 over different latitudinal regions and show error growth of the NCEP forecasts with time. Because of the importance of tropospheric water vapor to weather and climate, we compare error estimates of refractivity for dry and moist atmospheric conditions.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7zp49ng

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

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Temporal reference

Temporal extent

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End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-10-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

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Conformity

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Constraints related to access and use

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Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact