Performance of operational radiosonde humidity sensors in direct comparison with a chilled mirror dew‐point hygrometer and its climate implication

This study evaluates performance of humidity sensors in two widely used operational radiosondes, Vaisala and Sippican (formally VIZ), in comparison with a research quality, and potentially more accurate, chilled mirror dew‐point hygrometer named “Snow White”. A research radiosonde system carrying the Snow White (SW) hygrometer was deployed in the Oklahoma panhandle and at Dodge City, KS during the International H2O Project (IHOP_2002). A total of sixteen sondes were launched with either Vaisala RS80 or Sippican VIZ‐B2 radiosondes on the same balloons. Comparisons of humidity data from the SW with Vaisala and Sippican data show that (a) Vaisala RS80‐H agrees with the SW very well in the middle and lower troposphere, but has dry biases in the upper troposphere (UT), (b) Sippican carbon hygristor (CH) has time‐lag errors throughout the troposphere and fails to respond to humidity changes in the UT, sometimes even in the middle troposphere, and (c) the SW can detect cirrus clouds near the tropopause and possibly estimate their ice water content (IWC). The failure of CH in the UT results in significant and artificial humidity shifts in radiosonde climate records at stations where a transition from VIZ to Vaisala radiosondes has occurred.