Humidity measurements: in-situ vs. microwave

24 April 2018

Researchers have come to the conclusion in the past that humidity measurements are inconsistent between in-situ sensors and satellite-based microwave sensors. It was assumed that some aspect hasn't been fully understood yet, e.g. in the radiative transfer model that is used to compare the two measurements.

Our analysis shows that the measurements indeed do agree with their uncertainties taken into account. The apparent differences were caused by problems in the comparison method.

The article "Is There Really a Closure Gap Between 183.31-GHz Satellite Passive Microwave and Radiosonde Water Vapor Measurements?" by Oleksandr Bobryshev, Stefan Bühler et. al was published in the IEEE Xplore Journal.