North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME) Sounding Data Quality Control and Diagnostic Studies

本研究旨在通过对2004年北美季风试验（NAME）探空资料的分析，加深对北美季风系统内关键过程的理解。本研究的目的是扩展和扩大NAME数据的初步调查，以（1）通过（a）在网格分析中增加地面、地面和研究飞机观测，以及（B）校正湿度传感器误差，并随后将这些校正纳入探空数据档案和网格分析，提高NAME探空数据档案的质量;（2）利用改进的网格分析场对NAME区域的季风过程进行诊断研究。这项研究的知识价值来自于它将提供与重要的北美季风现象有关的结构特征和物理过程的新认识。 其中包括季风降水的主要水汽来源、沿着加州湾的急流和涌浪、影响季风区的热带和中纬度波浪扰动、对流的日循环以及深对流对大气的加热和增湿。NAME探测数据集在该地区的空间和时间分辨率方面是前所未有的，因此提供了一个机会，可以详细调查这些现象。用于进行这些研究的网格分析是独立的模式数据，因此，重要的诊断领域，如散度和垂直运动不受模式参数化。该研究的更广泛影响涉及如何提高对北美季风系统的理解和最终预测。在墨西哥的业务探空网络之前和之后的NAME字段阶段是非常稀疏的，这限制了它的效用在记录季风现象。这是一个短暂但重要的加强观测时期（其中探测只是一个组成部分），应充分利用这一时期，为季风过程提供新的见解。努力进一步提高探测数据的质量是很重要的，因为这一数据集将提供给诊断专家和建模界使用多年，作为热带沿海山区环境的分析和验证来源，这是世界上降水最多的其他沿海地区的典型情况。

This research is directed toward an improved understanding of key processes within the North American Monsoon System based on analyses of sounding data from the 2004 North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME). The objective of the research is to extend and expand initial investigations of NAME data to (1) improve the quality of the NAME sounding data archive by (a) adding pibal, surface, and research aircraft observations to the gridded analysis, and (b) correcting humidity sensor errors and subsequently incorporate those corrections into the sounding data archive and gridded analyses; and (2) conduct diagnostic studies of monsoon processes over the NAME domain using the improved gridded analysis fields. The intellectual merit of the research derives from the new understanding it will provide of the structural characteristics and physical processes associated with important North American monsoon phenomena. Among these are primary moisture sources for monsoon precipitation, jets and surges along the Gulf of California, tropical and midlatitude wave disturbances affecting the monsoon region, the diurnal cycle of convection, and heating and moistening of the atmosphere by deep convection. The NAME sounding dataset is unprecedented in its spatial and temporal resolution for this region, and therefore provides an opportunity for investigation of these phenomena with a detail heretofore not possible. The gridded analyses to be used to conduct these studies are independent of model data and consequently important diagnostic fields like divergence and vertical motion are not influenced by model parameterizations. The broader impacts of the research relate to how it will improve understanding and ultimately prediction of the North American monsoon system. The operational sounding network over Mexico both prior to and after the NAME field phase is very sparse, which limits its utility in documenting monsoon phenomena. NAME was a short, but important period of enhanced observations (among which soundings are only one component), and it should be fully exploited to provide new insights on monsoon processes. The effort to further improve the quality of the sounding data is important because this dataset will be made available to and be used by diagnosticians and the modeling community for many years to come as a source of analysis and validation in a tropical, coastal mountainous environment that is typical of other coastal regions where much of the world's heaviest precipitation occurs.