Abstract:

The Taklimakan Desert, the world's second largest desert, plays an important role in regional climate change. Previous studies on its spatial temperature features suffered from sparse conventional detection data, but the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) provides excellent temperature retrievals with high spatiotemporal resolution. Validation of AIRS temperature retrievals over desert regions with high land-surface emissivity, the key contributor to inversion error, is essential before using these data in regional weather/climate modeling. This paper examines the correlation coefficients, root mean square 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 consistent with RAOBs and are more consistent in the morning than at dusk. The consistency is better over a small-scale desert oasis than over a large-scale oasis in the morning and exhibits the opposite trend at dusk. The correlation coefficient over the hinterland is high in the morning but negative at dusk due to high desert-surface emissivity. Second, the RMSEs, which are all smaller than 3 K, are generally higher over desert sites than over oasis sites and slightly lower over a small-scale oasis than over a large-scale oasis in the morning. At dusk, the RMSEs are higher over desert sites than over oases and slightly higher over a small-scale oasis than over a large-scale oasis. Furthermore, the RMSEs are generally higher in the morning than at dusk over a large-scale oasis and lower in the morning than at dusk over a small-scale oasis. Third, the absolute mean BIAS values are mostly lower than 1 K. In the morning, relative to RAOB temperatures, the retrieval temperatures are higher over desert sites but lower over oasis sites. At dusk, the retrieval temperatures are lower than RAOB temperatures over both desert and oasis sites. The retrieval temperatures are higher than RAOB temperatures over desert sites in the morning but slightly lower at dusk. Most absolute mean BIAS values are higher in the morning than at dusk over both oasis and desert sites. Finally, the consistency between the AIRS and RAOB temperature data is high from 700 hPa to 100 hPa in the morning and from 700 hPa to 300 hPa at dusk. The difference between the AIRS and RAOB temperature data is generally higher in the morning than that at dusk. The RMSE differences between the AIRS and RAOB data are slightly lower in the morning than at dusk and are lower in the middle layers between 700 hPa and 150 hPa than in the layers above 150 hPa during both the morning and night. The BIAS is lower in the morning than at dusk below 300 hPa but higher in the upper layers. Moreover, the BIAS value is positive in the middle layers between 500 hPa and 150 hPa and negative at other levels at both times. Generally, the AIRS retrieval temperatures are reliable and can be used in further studies in the Taklimakan Desert.

Key words: AIRS, Taklimakan Desert, temperature, quality validation