An Application of the Satellite Indirect Sounding Technique in Describing the Hyperbaroclinic Zone of a Jet Streak

Abstract

Often important weather-producing features such as the jet streak are not adequately resolved at the input stage of numerical models. The satellite indirect sounding technique offers promise of greatly increasing observational detail. An 18 March 1971 case study is used to test the ability of the SIRS algorithm to resolve the thermal support of a jet streak. Isentropic cross sections through the streak are prepared and 17 synthetic soundings are obtained. The sounding data are reduced to equivalent irradiances, and the SIRS algorithm is used to retrieve the thermal structure for various assumed observational errors, grid spacings, and initial guess profiles. While an observational error of 0.25 erg (cm2 sec sr cm?1)?1 permits the, reconstruction of the general wind field, accuracies to within 0.10 and preferably 0.05 erg are required to resolve the essential structure of the jet stxeak's thermal support.