Evaluation of Aircraft (ACARS) data as a substitute for Radiosonde data: Climate Perspective

The National Weather Service is considering replacing seventeen radiosonde sites with data taken from instrumented aircraft. In this paper, temperature and winds from aircraft are compared to radiosonde data at 1000, 850, 700, 500, 400, and 300 mbs. Errors in the radiosonde data are quantified and significant test are performed on radiosonde minus ACARS data. Analysis shows that there are significant differences between ACARS and radiosonde temperatures at 1000, 850, 400, and 300 mbs. Windspeed differences were at most, 1 m/s. Replacement of radiosonde data with ACARS data will result in a systematic error in temperature time series in the troposphere and lower stratosphere.