New Evaluation Product Provides Thermodynamic Variables from Multiple Instruments

Published: 12 June 2012

The Interpolated Sonde (INTERPSONDE) value-added product (VAP) is an intermediate step of the MERGESONDE VAP that produces a daily file of atmospheric state variables (temperature, humidity, pressure, and winds) from radiosonde soundings, the microwave radiometer, and surface meteorological instruments. INTERPSONDE includes many of the same sophisticated scaling/interpolation/smoothing schemes that are the hallmark of MERGESONDE, but does not incorporate European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model output. Excluding the ECMWF model output minimizes the necessary time lag in producing the profiles of atmospheric state variables. This provides an important input for higher-order radar VAPs that address attenuation of the radar signal and retrieval of winds. As with MERGESONDE, these thermodynamic profiles are at 1-minute intervals and a total of 316 altitude levels.

This VAP will be run at the following sites:

• Southern Great Plains
• North Slope of Alaska
• Tropical Western Pacific
• all AMF Deployments that use radiosondes.

More information on INTERPSONDE is available at the VAP web page. To access these data, log in to the Data Archive. (Go here to request an account.)