ACCURACY OF RETRIEVAL OF AIR HUMIDITY PROFILES FROM STATION DATA

D. V. Vas'kova

The possibility is considered of using surface weather observations to correct vertical structure of humidity fields in objective analysis. The vertical profiles of mixing ratio obtained from surface observations at weather stations and radiosonde data, averaged over one synoptic time as well as over seasons, are compared with the corresponding 6-h forecasts from the Hydrometeorological Research Center's global spectral medium-range T85L31 model. It is shown that 6-h forecasts agree well with the observational data and that the deviations of the retrieved profiles from the forecasts decrease when additional meteorological information is taken into account. Accuracy of the retrieval of the vertical humidity profile from surface observations is estimated, and it is shown that the method of retrieval of vertical humidity profiles from surface observations can be considered reasonable at least up to 600-hPa level.