Stratospheric Analyses Produced by the United Kingdom Meteorological Office

Abstract

Since late 1978, the U.K. Meteorological Office (UKMO) has processed accurate radiance measurements of the stratosphere from a set of three radiometers (Statospheric Sounding Unit, Microwave Sounding Unit, High-Resolution Infrared Sounder) flown on satellites in the TIROS series. The radiometers scan both sides of the subsatellite track giving almost global coverage. UKMO uses its own retrieval algorithm to derive thickness from radiances. The retrieval is a linear, physiral?statistical method that utilizes a reference set of temperature profiles as a priori data. Thickness are added to a contemporaneous field of geopotential height at 100 hPa to give geopotential heights at standard pressure levels in the stratosphere up to 1 hPa. Global synoptic fields for 1200 UTC are produced every day on a regular latitude?longitude grid by linear interpolation in space and time. The paper describes the retrieval method and objective analysis in detail. It outlines the availability of data in the 14-year archive and summarizes the main findings of several studies on data quality. Finally, it tells prospective users how to get the data and what cheeks they should make before trying to interpret them.