At ICM-14, Michael Sommer (Lead Centre) received the certificate for the RS41 GRUAN Data Product (GDP) from the hands of Peter Thorne, co-chair of WG-GRUAN. The GRUAN data processing for the Vaisala RS41 radiosonde was developed by the Lead Centre at Lindenberg observatory, this included the comprehensive characterisation of the measurement errors of the radiosondes sensors, on which the correction algorithms are based. In this process a custom-built set up was employed to investigate the radiation error of the temperature sensor at pressure levels that are representative to those encountered in flight, and dedicated measurements were performed to accurately determine the response time of the humidity sensor at low temperatures.
The certification of the data product acknowledges that these efforts result reference quality measurement data for the RS41, and is based on fulfilling requirements such as:
- a paper describing the correction for the radiation temperature error (von Rohden et al. 2022).
- an operational centralized data processing facility, which resides at the Lead Centre.
- the RS41 is employed within GRUAN; currently it is used at 24 GRUAN sites.
Since the Technical document describing the data processing is still under review, the certification is provisional, awaiting acceptance of the TD by the Working group. The certification of the RS41 data product bridges the gap in the GRUAN data stream that occurred after the transition from the RS92 to RS41, ensuring continued availability of GRUAN data products for a considerable part of the network.
For more information, see the RS41-GDP.1 page.
