Articles | Volume 25, issue 23
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-17319-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-17319-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
02 Dec 2025
Research article |
| 02 Dec 2025
| 02 Dec 2025
Intercomparison of tropopause height climatologies: high-resolution radiosonde measurements versus ERA5 reanalysis
Yu Gou
Hubei Subsurface Multi–scale Imaging Key Laboratory, School of Geophysics and Geomatics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Jian Zhang
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Hubei Subsurface Multi–scale Imaging Key Laboratory, School of Geophysics and Geomatics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Wuke Wang
State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather Meteorological Science and Technology (LaSW), Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (CAMS), Beijing, China
School of environmental studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Kaiming Huang
School of Electronic Information, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Shaodong Zhang
School of Electronic Information, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
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The most commonly used tropopause height detection algorithm is based on the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) definition from 1957. However, with the increasing vertical resolution of atmospheric data, this definition has been found to fail in high-resolution radiosonde data. Thus, we propose an improved method to address this issue. This method can effectively bypassing thin inversions while preserving the fine–scale structure of the tropopause.
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Vertical wind profiles are crucial to a wide range of atmospheric disciplines. Aeolus is the first satellite mission to directly observe wind profile information on a global scale. However, Aeolus wind products over China have thus far not been evaluated by in situ comparison. This work is expected to let the public and science community better know the Aeolus wind products and to encourage use of these valuable data in future research and applications.
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Short summary
Tropopause height is a key climate change indicator, with accurate long-term trends vital for climate research. Radiosonde data, while reliable, has limited coverage. ERA5 (European Centre for Medium–Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis v5) is a reanalysis dataset that provides global data, enabling comparisons of tropopause height estimates and then analyzed for long-term trends. Results show a 32 m mean difference (radiosonde – ERA5) with trends of +9 m/year (radiosonde) and +7 m/year (ERA5), crucial for characterizing tropopause changes under climate change.
Tropopause height is a key climate change indicator, with accurate long-term trends vital for...
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