Articles | Volume 5, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-5-491-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-5-491-2024
Research article
 | 
05 Apr 2024
Research article |  | 05 Apr 2024

Influence of radiosonde observations on the sharpness and altitude of the midlatitude tropopause in the ECMWF IFS

Konstantin Krüger, Andreas Schäfler, Martin Weissmann, and George C. Craig

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Cited articles

Birner, T.: Fine-scale structure of the extratropical tropopause region, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D04104, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005JD006301, 2006. 
Birner, T., Dörnbrack, A., and Schumann, U.: How sharp is the tropopause at midlatitudes?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 29, 45-1–45-4, https://doi.org/10.1029/2002GL015142, 2002.​​​​​​​ 
Birner, T., Sankey, D., and Shepherd, T. G.: The tropopause inversion layer in models and analyses, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L14804, https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL026549, 2006. 
Bland, J., Gray, S., Methven, J., and Forbes, R.: Characterizing extratropical near-tropopause analysis humidity biases and their radiative effects on temperature forecasts, Q. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 140, 3878–3898, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.4150, 2021. 
Boljka, L. and Birner, T.: Potential impact of tropopause sharpness on the structure and strength of the general circulation, npj Clim. Atmos. Sci., 5, 98, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-022-00319-6, 2022. 
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Short summary
Initial conditions of current numerical weather prediction models insufficiently represent the sharp vertical gradients across the midlatitude tropopause. Observation-space data assimilation output is used to study the influence of assimilated radiosondes on the tropopause. The radiosondes reduce systematic biases of the model background and sharpen temperature and wind gradients in the analysis. Tropopause sharpness is still underestimated in the analysis, which may impact weather forecasts.
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