Comparisons of Temperature and Water Vapor Records from Modern Satellite Sounders

With a common heritage of high-resolution infrared spectral coverage, modern satellite sounding instruments have observed a detailed record of atmospheric processes since 2002. Because of its value in forecasting, the sounder constellation will be maintained into the coming decades. Despite similar information content and observational overlaps of up to nine years with current systems, a merged temperature-water vapor record from modern sounders has not been created. We present results of an effort to create a merged record based on the AIRS/AMSU system, with its well-understood set of observations. The AIRS/AMSU observations are being compared with others from the IASI/AMSU/MHS instruments on two MetOp satellites, and with CrIS/ATMS on the Suomi-NPP satellite. We will discuss the nature of the coverage by combined sounders, and the relative differences between observations from the instrument systems.