Evaluation of Multi-reanalysis Products with Radiosonde Observations
over the Central Taklimakan Desert
Abstract
To provide guidance for the use of reanalysis data in the Central
Taklimakan Desert (CTD), multiple reanalysis products are evaluated
based on the radiosonde data obtained from two field experiments for the
first time in the CTD, including the European Centre for Medium-Range
Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Reanalysis version 5 (ERA5), ECMWF
Reanalysis-Interim (ERA-Interim), Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA55),
Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications version
2 (MERRA2), and the National Centers for Environmental
Prediction-Department of Energy Reanalysis version 2 (NCEP2). The
results show that reanalysis temperature (T), specific humidity (Q),
geopotential height (GPH), and wind field (U and V components) are
consistent with the radiosonde observations in terms of the vertical
distribution. In general, ERA5 has the best performance in the CTD
during the study period, followed closely by ERA-Interim. However, NCEP2
produces the largest error. The errors of all the reanalysis data show
significant diurnal variations, and the diurnal variations differ from
each other. Moreover, the results indicate that the reanalysis datasets
have largest deviation at 850 hPa (near the ground), which means that
the desert region may exist complex interactions between the land
surface and the atmosphere. Therefore, more attention should be paid to
the description of complex interactions between land and atmosphere over
the moving-sand desert region in the numerical models.