The Water Vapor Validation Experiments (WAVES) field campaign has been held at Howard University research campus in Beltsville, Maryland during July and August of 2006 and 2007. The primary purpose of these campaigns is to validate satellite measurements of water vapor, aerosols, and trace gases. In addition, WAVES data is used to perform instruments inter-comparison and to analyze case studies of regional water vapor and aerosol variability.

Among observations from both campaigns there are over 100 upper air soundings of pressure, temperature, and relative humidity gathered by using radiosonde sensors from five different vendors. Additionally, near continuous sampling of water vapor mixing ratio profiles were recorded by Howard University Raman Lidar (HURL) system, which operated throughout WAVES. Tropospheric moisture profiles are analyzed and inter-compared with those derived from HURL. Specifically statistics of sonde-HURL mixing ratio differences for different temporal and spatial averaging of HURL data are presented. These analyses are also conducted in terms of a range of meteorological and humidity conditions. Radiosondes that are under testing as part of the National Weather Service (NWS) Radiosonde Replacement System (RRS) are a particular focus of this study.