EGUsphere paper Romanens et al. 2026 in review

Article

The following GRUAN-relevant paper was published at EGUsphere [preprint]: "Assessment of humidity ground checks for GRUAN-compliant automatic radiosonde operations" by Romanens et al.

 

(https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-3215). The paper is open for discussion until 16 September 2026.
 

Short summary


Automatic systems are increasingly used to launch weather balloons, raising questions about the long-term consistency of reference humidity measurements within the Global Climate Observing System Reference Upper-Air Network. We tested how storing balloon instruments inside automatic launch systems for up to two weeks affects humidity measurements under controlled conditions at six international sites. Results show that the impact strongly depends on the instrument type and storage environment.

 

Romanens2026_egusphere-2026-3215

Title

Assessment of humidity ground checks for GRUAN-compliant automatic radiosonde operations

 

Authors

Romanens, G., Martucci, G., Rosoldi, M., Poltera, Y., Cardós, C., Prats, N., Ambe, S., Cosimato, G., Farah, A., Félix, C., Gandolfi, I., Haefele, A., Hernández, M., Iwabuchi, M., Jann, P., Lam, J. M. C., Marra, F., Rodríguez, J. M., Roulet, Y.-A., Tanaka, Y., Dirksen, R., and Madonna, F.

 

Published

by EGUsphere [preprint] (EGUS) at 2026-08-12 in review

 

Abstract

Automated Radiosonde Launchers (ARLs) are increasingly adopted for upper-air observations as they offer major operational advantages compared to manual launches, but they introduce new challenges for maintaining reference-quality humidity measurements within the GCOS Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN). In particular, the applicability of the pre-launch Standard Humidity Chamber (SHC) test, routinely used for manual radiosonde launches, has not been systematically assessed for radiosondes stored inside ARLs prior to launch.

 

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