Testing Radiosonde Replacement System (RRS) Radiosondes

The National Weather Service (NWS) has developed the Radiosonde Replacement System (RRS) to replace its antiquated Micro-ART system, which has been in operation since the late 1980s. Although the NWS tested and qualified two1680-MHz GPS radiosondes for use with the RRS, they are currently only procuring one of the two radiosondes tested.

Over the course of the last two years the NWS has conducted a series of tests to understand the measurement characteristics of the radiosondes qualified for use with the RRS. This paper will discuss some recent updates to techniques developed for these tests. Test procedures discussed are the use of the Global Positioning Satellite-derived Integrated Precipitable Water (GPS-IPW) to evaluate the total moisture, evaluating atmospheric profiles and derived parameters using the RAOB program, inter-comparison test with the NASA developed reference radiosonde for evaluating the temperature's radiation correction, and the use of benchmarks to test software. Examples of the types of data acquired during recent tests will be presented.