A comparison of temperature and wind measurements from ACARS- equipped aircraft and rawinsondes

Abstract

A comparison was made of temperature and wind observations reported by rawinsonde and Aircraft Communications, Addressing, and Reporting System (ACARS)-equipped commercial aircraft and separated by less than 150 km in distance and 90 min in time near Denver, Colorado. A standard deviation temperature difference of 0.97°C and rms vector wind difference of 5.76 m s-1 were found for the entire sample but were reduced, respectively, to 0.59°C and 4.00 m s-1 when only data pairs separated by less than 25 km and 15 min were used. The study provides an upper limit to the combination of rawinsonde and ACARS observation and reporting errors and mesoscale variability. However, overall, these statistics indicate that the rawinsonde data used were more accurate than that reported in a previous study and that the accuracy of the ACARS data was somewhat higher still. -from Authors