Comparison of upper tropospheric water vapor from GOES, Raman lidar, and cross-chain loran atmospheric sounding system measurements

Instantaneous measurements of the upper tropospheric relative humidity from GOES are shown to agree to within roughly 6% of the nearest lidar observations and 9% of the nearest CLASS observations. The CLASS data exhibit a slight yet systematic dry bias in upper tropospheric humidity, a result which is consistent with previous radiosonde intercomparisons. The upper tropospheric humidity inferred from the GOES 6.7-μm channel is demonstrated to agree to within roughly 5% of the relative humidity vertically averaged over the depth of atmosphere to which the 6.7-μm channel is sensitive. The results of this study encourage the use of satellite measurements in the 6.7-μm channel to quantitatively describe the distribution and temporal evolution of the upper tropospheric humidity field. -from Authors