Harmonization and comparison of vertically resolved atmospheric state observations: methods, effects, and uncertainty budget

Many applications of atmospheric composition and climate data involve the comparison or combination of vertically resolved atmospheric state variables. Calculating differences and combining data require harmonization of data representations in terms of physical quantities and vertical sampling at le...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Atmospheric measurement techniques 2019-08, Vol.12 (8), p.4379-4391
Main Authors:	Keppens, Arno, Compernolle, Steven, Verhoelst, Tijl, Hubert, Daan, Lambert, Jean-Christopher
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Air masses Atmospheric chemistry Atmospheric composition Atmospheric models Bias Budgets Climate Climatic data Information processing Observations Organic chemistry Remote sensing Retrieval Satellites State variable Uncertainty
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Many applications of atmospheric composition and climate data involve the comparison or combination of vertically resolved atmospheric state variables. Calculating differences and combining data require harmonization of data representations in terms of physical quantities and vertical sampling at least. If one or both datasets result from a retrieval process, knowledge of prior information and averaging kernel matrices in principle allows retrieval differences to be accounted for as well. Spatiotemporal mismatch of the sensed air masses and its contribution to the data discrepancies can be estimated with chemistry transport modeling support. In this work an overview of harmonization or matching operations for atmospheric profile observations is provided. The effect of these manipulations on the information content of the original data and on the uncertainty budget of data comparisons is examined and discussed.
ISSN:	1867-8548 1867-1381 1867-8548