COMPARISONS OF SATELLITE AND GROUND-BASED TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENTS OVER NATAL, BRAZIL

In March/April 1985.a cooperative INPE/NASA field measurement campaign at Natal, Brazil provided tropospheric and stratospheric temperature profiles as part of a comparison program for satellite ozone measurements. This study examines the temperature data including results from datasondes, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) analyses, and the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE II). The SAGE II results are the retrieved temperatures using a recently developed inversion technique. It is shown that, in the altitude range from 30 to 45 lan, the individual profile agreement is within about 5 K between SAGE II and datasonde, and is within 12 K between NMC and datasonde. When the average of the 16 SAGE II temperature profiles is compared with that of the seven datasondes, the agreement is about 3 K in approximately the same altitude range. The corresponding agreement is about 8 K between eight NMC profiles and the seven datasondes.