---

Current Limitations

• The LKS adjusted data are limited to 87 stations for the nominal time period of
  1948-1997. The adjustment process is tedious and very time consuming, with a
  subjective component. It is not practical to apply this methodology to other
  stations or even to extend the existing ones beyond 1997. There is no other
  proven, general-purpose method which can be applied to radiosonde station data.

• It is very likely that LKS did not adjust enough (i.e., failed to adjust enough
  stations/vertical levels) so that the spurious cooling bias is even larger than
  estimated. This statement is supported by three independent pieces of evidence:
  1. By design, LKS selected only the most obvious potential inhomogeneities
     for consideration; more ambiguous cases were not scrutinized.

  2. Even after homogeneity adjustment, the LKS radiosonde temperatures
     have a non-trivial spurious cooling trend relative to the
     Christy/Spencer MSU data.

  3. The new Wentz et al. MSU temperature products have a considerably
     larger warming trend than the comparable Christy/Spencer products.

• In summary, current radiosonde temperature time series (LKS as well as
  all other such products) are sub-standard both in their own right for
  climate monitoring and for use as input to the next~ 50-year Reanalysis.

Back to the main page