Validation of Aura MLS retrievals of temperature, water vapour and ozone
in the upper troposphere and lower–middle stratosphere over the Tibetan Plateau during boreal summer

Yan, Xiaolu; Wright, Jonathon S.; Zheng, Xiangdong; Livesey, Nathaniel J.; Vömel, Holger; Zhou, Xiuji

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-3547-2016

Articles | Volume 9, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-3547-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Study of ozone, aerosols and radiation over the Tibetan Plateau...

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-3547-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 8

Research article

|

03 Aug 2016

Research article |

| 03 Aug 2016

Validation of Aura MLS retrievals of temperature, water vapour and ozone in the upper troposphere and lower–middle stratosphere over the Tibetan Plateau during boreal summer

Xiaolu Yan, Jonathon S. Wright, Xiangdong Zheng, Nathaniel J. Livesey, Holger Vömel, and Xiuji Zhou

Data sets

MLS/Aura Level 2 Water Vapor (H2O) Mixing Ratio V004 Lambert, A., Read, W. and Livesey, N. https://doi.org/10.5067/AURA/MLS/DATA2009

MLS/Aura Level 2 Ozone (O3) Mixing Ratio V004 Schwartz, M., Froidevaux, L., Livesey, N. and Read, W. https://doi.org/10.5067/AURA/MLS/DATA2017

MLS/Aura Level 2 Temperature V004 Schwartz, M., Livesey, N. and Read, W. https://doi.org/10.5067/AURA/MLS/DATA2021

MLS/Aura Level 2 Water Vapor (H2O) Mixing Ratio V003 EOS MLS Science Team https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2006.873771

MLS/Aura Level 2 Ozone (O3) Mixing Ratio V003 EOS MLS Science Team https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2006.873771

MLS/Aura Level 2 Temperature V003 EOS MLS Science Team https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2006.873771

Short summary

We evaluate Aura Microwave Limb Sounder retrievals of temperature, water vapour and ozone over the eastern Tibetan Plateau against measurements from balloon-borne instruments. The newest version of the retrievals (v4) represents a slight improvement over the previous version, particularly with respect to data yields and upper tropospheric ozone. We identify several biases that did not appear in evaluations conducted elsewhere, highlighting the unique challenges of remote sensing in this region.