Workshop 1



Breakout Group:Surface Air Temperature and Humidity


Database for instantaneous retrievals at pixel scale should include:

  1. SSM/T and SSM/T2
  2. TRMM (TMI and VIRS)
  3. AMSU A + B
  4. TOVS
  5. Reynolds SST
  6. Pathfinder SST
  7. ATSR, GOES8. . .


For certain periods, dependent on what is available on the in-situ side, the in-situ database should include:

  1. IMET Bouys (e.g. subduction period is covered by all datasets).
  2. Radiosondes and LIDAR for profile algorithms (e.g. ARM site in the Western Pacific).


In the context of the global ocean observing system we recommend to bring out more high-quality bouys as validation reference and a retrieval development data base.



Available datasets

Data Set Coverage Time Resolution Spatial Resolution Period
Curry et al. COARE IFA 3h 0. 5° x 0.5° 11/92-02/93
Chou et.al Global Daily
Monthly		 2° x 2.5° 07/87-12/94
HOAPS Global Daily
Pentad
Monthly		 0.5° x 0.5°
1° x 1°
2.5° x 2.5°		 07/87-12/96 continued
Jones et al. Global Monthly 1° x 1° 01/88-12/98 continued
Kubota et al. Global 3d
Monthly		 1° x 1° 01/91-12/95
Analysis and Reanalysis Global 6h 1° x 1°  
Pathfinder TOVS Global Twice daily 1° x 1° 87-94


All datasets cover the period 01/91-12/94.

Organize a catalog like we have done in the JSC/SCOR group.



Status Summary: There is some hope of getting useful values of qa from satellite on daily time scales. Ta remains very difficult. 4DVAR assimilation of SSM/I and other data may provide the best values until profiling sensors provide observations in the atmospheric boundary layer (hopefully NPOESS). There was considerable debate about Curry's proposal of doing regional diagnostic studies. Many are opposed because regional algorithms will introduce "seams" in the analyzed fields and global algorithms are more aesthetically pleasing. The proponents of the regional approach say that "seams" are the least of our problems and can be dealt with in a variety of ways; if we want to infer values at higher resolution than we can sense directly, this is the only approach that will work. The bottom line is that the Ta, qa problem is difficult; however it hasn't been worked as hard as the wind and SST fields, so further efforts should be directed to this topic.