Validation of AIRS-Retrieved atmospheric temperature data over the Taklimakan Desert

作者：YuFen Ma,RuQi Li,Men Zhang,MinZhong Wang,Mamtimin Ali

摘要：The Taklimakan Desert, the world's second largest desert, plays an important role in regional climate change. Previousstudies on its spatial temperature features suffered from sparse conventional detection data, but the Atmospheric InfraredSounder (AIRS) provides excellent temperature retrievals with high spatiotemporal resolution. Validation of AIRS temperatureretrievals over desert regions with high land-surface emissivity, the key contributor to inversion error, is essential beforeusing these data in regional weather/climate modeling. This paper examines the correlation coefficients, root meansquare error (RMSE) and mean BIAS between AIRS-retrieved atmospheric temperature data and radiosonde observations(RAOBs) in the Taklimakan Desert hinterland and oases in the morning and at dusk. Firstly, the AIRS retrievals are consistentwith RAOBs and are more consistent in the morning than at dusk. The consistency is better over a small-scale desert oasisthan over a large-scale oasis in the morning and exhibits the opposite trend at dusk. The correlation coefficient over thehinterland is high in the morning but negative at dusk due to high desert-surface emissivity. Second, the RMSEs, which areall smaller than 3 K, are generally higher over desert sites than over oasis sites and slightly lower over a small-scale oasisthan over a large-scale oasis in the morning. At dusk, the RMSEs are higher over desert sites than over oases and slightlyhigher over a small-scale oasis than over a large-scale oasis. Furthermore, the RMSEs are generally higher in the morningthan at dusk over a large-scale oasis and lower in the morning than at dusk over a small-scale oasis. Third, the absolutemean BIAS values are mostly lower than 1 K. In the morning, relative to RAOB temperatures, the retrieval temperaturesare higher over desert sites but lower over oasis sites. At dusk, the retrieval temperatures are lower than RAOB temperaturesover both desert and oasis sites. The retrieval temperatures are higher than RAOB temperatures over desert sit

发文机构：Institute of Desert Meteorology Center of Central Asia Atmospheric Science Research Xinjiang Meteorological Observatory

关键词：AIRSTaklimakanDesertTEMPERATUREqualityvalidation

分类号： X16[环境科学与工程—环境科学]