Estimated Impacts on Climate Records of Adaptive Strategies for Scheduling Radiosondes

Possible changes to the North American Atmospheric Observing System that are under discussion include the scheduling of radiosonde launches according to synoptic conditions. The authors estimate biases in long-term monthly mean tropospheric temperature and humidity resulting from reducing the number of radiosonde launches at a site depending on synoptic conditions. The sign and magnitudes of the biases vary considerably with geographic location and sometimes with season. Such biases would contaminate the upper-air climatology and complicate the calculation of climate trends. Approaches for minimizing these biases are explored.