TP-PROFILE: Monitoring the Thermodynamic Structure of the Troposphere over the Third Pole

Ground-based microwave radiometers (MWRs) operating in the K- and V-bands (20–60 GHz) can help us obtain temperature and humidity profiles in the troposphere. Aside from some soundings from local meteorological observatories, the tropospheric atmosphere over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) has never been c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in atmospheric sciences 2024-06, Vol.41 (6), p.1264-1277
Main Authors: Chen, Xuelong, Liu, Yajing, Ma, Yaoming, Ma, Weiqiang, Xu, Xiangde, Cheng, Xinghong, Li, Luhan, Xu, Xin, Wang, Binbin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric Sciences
Data Description Article
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Environmental changes
Geophysics/Geodesy
Humidity profiles
Meteorology
Microwave imagery
Microwave radiometers
Moisture
Moisture profiles
Monitoring
Multiship expeditions
Observatories
Plateaus
Radiometers
Radiosondes
Research programmes
Soundings
Synoptic processes
Temporal resolution
Thermodynamics
Troposphere
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Summary:Ground-based microwave radiometers (MWRs) operating in the K- and V-bands (20–60 GHz) can help us obtain temperature and humidity profiles in the troposphere. Aside from some soundings from local meteorological observatories, the tropospheric atmosphere over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) has never been continuously observed. As part of the Chinese Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP), the Tibetan Plateau Atmospheric Profile (TP-PROFILE) project aims to construct a comprehensive MWR troposphere observation network to study the synoptic processes and environmental changes on the TP. This initiative has collected three years of data from the MWR network. This paper introduces the data information, the data quality, and data downloading. Some applications of the data obtained from these MWRs were also demonstrated. Our comparisons of MWR against the nearest radiosonde observation demonstrate that the TP-PROFILE MWR system is adequate for monitoring the thermal and moisture variability of the troposphere over the TP. The continuous temperature and moisture profiles derived from the MWR data provide a unique perspective on the evolution of the thermodynamic structure associated with the heating of the TP. The TP-PROFILE project reveals that the low-temporal resolution instruments are prone to large uncertainties in their vapor estimation in the mountain valleys on the TP.
ISSN:0256-1530
1861-9533
DOI:10.1007/s00376-023-3199-y