The planetary boundary layer (PBL) is the lowest layer of the atmosphere, and performs essential regulating actions like exchanging heat, moisture, and chemical constituents between the surface and atmosphere. The height of the PBL is important for predicting air quality, forecasting weather, and measuring other important variables. However, PBL height is difficult to measure using atmospheric profile measurements near the surface.
The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Radio Occultation (RO) technique can provide active measurements under all weather conditions over much of the world. Using data from two GNSS RO missions, ESSIC/CISESS scientist Guojun Gu, alongside NOAA colleagues Shu-Peng Ho and Xinjia Zhou, developed a global climatology of PBLH over oceans covering the years 2019 to 2023 and compared their RO results with PBLHs from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Atmospheric Reanalysis Version 5 (ERA-5), the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications Version 2 (MERRA-2), and the National Center of Environmental Prediction-Climate Forecast System (CFS).
They report noticeable differences between RO PBLHs and reanalysis/model PBLHs. On a promising note, the RO PBLHs are consistent between 45◦N and 45◦S, heralding the possibility of combining these RO results with those from other RO missions to generate a global PBLH climatology, with polar regions included.
Guojun Gu’s research at ESSIC/UMD focuses on analyzing and exploring global precipitation variations and changes on interannual/interdecadal to climate-trend scales by means of satellite-based observations and climate model outputs. Dr. Gu has published over 60 papers in the field. He received his B.S. from Nanjing University and his Ph.D. from University of Miami.
To access the article, click here: “The Planetary Boundary Layer Height Climatology Over Oceans Using COSMIC-2 and Spire GNSS RO Bending Angles From 2019 to 2023: Comparisons to CALIOP, ERA-5, MERRA2, and CFS Reanalysis”.
