6.2 Upper-air land observations

Table 12 provides a summary of the menu options in the WDQMS web tool menu bar when “upper-air” and “availability” are selected (for NWP monitoring and Monitoring category, respectively). The generated maps display the availability performance for each station, highlighting differences in reporting performance as well as issues related to the station metadata recorded in OSCAR/Surface. Regarding the 6-hourly periods, the reporting performances focus on the existence and completeness of the radiosonde report, i.e., if in the report all three variables - temperature, wind and humidity - are available above 100 hPa (information of both layers, Trop and Stra, section 2.2). This is described by the following categories: not reporting during the period (black); incomplete launch due to missing variable(s) and incomplete launch due to missing layer(s) (orange and red, respectively); complete launch (green). In the daily option, the reporting performances are divided into the following categories: not reporting during the period (black); reporting with some completeness issues (orange), meaning variable(s) and/or layer missing; reporting but with some availability issues, meaning totals below expected (red); fully reporting, no issues (green).  The metadata issues flagged are the following: station ID not known to OSCAR/Surface (yellow); station reporting more than expected (pink). Clicking on a dot on the map shows a pop-up with detailed information about the station data availability over the selected period. For the 6-hourly periods, details of the observations received such as Layer, Variable and observation type (TAC or the new high resolution BUFR reports) and status (used / not used, “used” meaning that at least one level/variable was assimilated) are provided. Clicking on “Time series” will show the percentage of completeness of each radiosonde sounding during a 30-day period. For the daily option, the total number of received observation reports during the selected interval is provided, as well as information about the completeness of those reports and the number of expected reports according to OSCAR/Surface or the GBON draft provisions. Clicking on “Time series” opens up a screen with a chart containing the daily availability over time (30 days), namely the time series with the total number of received observations during the selected interval/variable as well as the number of expected observations according to OSCAR/Surface or the GBON draft provisions (options in the “Baseline” menu).

Table 12 - This table summarises the content of WDQMS web tool views when monitoring the availability of upper-air land observations (NWP monitoring: upper-air; Monitoring category: availability) is intended.

The options available on WDQMS web tool control menu when we select to monitor the “quality” (as Monitoring category) of “upper-air” (as NWP monitoring) are described in the Table 13.  By selecting the date, time period, monitoring centre and variable, a map will show how the observing network meets the NWP requirements set for the selected variable. The generated map is based on the root mean square error (rmse, section 3.2) calculated for the period and variable of interest. It shows the stations whose observations are considered useful for NWP purposes (greenish dots), and highlights the major anomalies regarding stations with observations that deviate from the model forecasts quite significantly (orange and red dots) and exceed the limits set as “threshold” requirements  (Table 7).  Clicking on a dot on the map displays a pop-up with a summary of the statistics used to describe the quality of the observations from that station over the selected period. As the quality information is split into two layers (Trop and Stra), we choose to display on the map the worse result of the two. In this way, any quality issue localised in the vertical will be more easily spotted. Moreover, clicking on “Time series” on each pop-up window will display 30-day time series of various statistics calculated for the selected interval/variable and atmospheric layer (Table 14). 

Table 13 - This table summarises the content of WDQMS web tool views when the options to monitor the quality of  upper-air land observations (NWP monitoring: upper-air; Monitoring category: quality) are selected.