AN ASSESSMENT OF SATELLITE TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTIONS USED TO DERIVE THE NET DIABATIC TRANSPORT FOR ZONALLY AVERAGED MODELS OF THE MIDDLE ATMOSPHERE

Determinations of the zonally averaged and diabatically derived residu al mean circulation (RMC) are particularly sensitive to the assumed zo nal mean temperature distribution used as input. Several different mid dle atmosphere satellite temperature distributions have been employed in models and are compared here: a 4-year (late 1978 to early 1982) Na tional Meteorological Center (NMC) climatology, the Barnett and Corney (or BC) climatology, and the 7 months of Nimbus 7 limb infrared monit or of the stratosphere (LIMS) temperatures. All three climatologies ar e generally accurate below the 10 hPa level, but there are systematic differences between them of up to +/-5 K in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere. The NMC/LIMS differences are evaluated using time s eries of rocketsonde and reconstructed satellite temperatures at stati on locations. Much of those biases can be explained by the differing v ertical resolutions for the satellite-derived temperatures; the time s eries of reconstructed LIMS profiles have higher resolution and are mo re accurate. Because the LIMS temperatures are limited to just two ful l seasons, one cannot obtain monthly RMCs from them for an annual mode l calculation. Two alternate monthly climatologies are examined briefl y: the 4-year Nimbus 7 stratospheric and mesospheric sounder (SAMS) te mperatures and for the mesosphere the distribution from the Solar Meso sphere Explorer (SME), both of which are limb viewers of medium vertic al resolution. There are also differences of the order of +/-5 K for t hose data sets. It is concluded that a major source of error in the de termination of diabatic RMCs is a persistent pattern of temperature bi as whose characteristics vary according to the vertical resolution of each individual climatology.