Assessment of vertical air motion among reanalyses and qualitative comparison with very-high-frequency radar measurements over two tropical stations

Abstract

Abstract. Vertical wind (w) is one of the most important meteorological parameters for understanding a range of different atmospheric phenomena. Very few direct measurements of w are available so that most of the time one must depend on reanalysis products. In the present study, assessment of w among selected reanalyses (ERA-Interim, ERAi; ERA fifth generation, ERA5; Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, version 2, MERRA-2; National Center for Atmospheric Research and Depart- ment of Energy reanalysis, NCEP–DOE (R-2); and Japanese 55-year reanalysis, JRA-55) and qualitative comparison of those datasets with VHF radar measurements over the convectively active regions Gadanki, India (13.5∘ N, 79.2∘ E), and Kototabang, Indonesia (0∘ S, 100.2∘ E), are presented for the first time in the troposphere and lower stratosphere. The magnitude of w derived from reanalyses is 10 %–50 % less than that from the radar observations. Radar measurements of w show downdrafts below 8 and 10 km and updrafts above 8–10 km over both locations. Intercomparison between the ensemble of reanalyses with respect to individual reanalysis shows that ERAi, MERRA-2 and JRA-55 compare well with the ensemble compared to ERA5 and NCEP–DOE (R-2). There is no significant improvement in w due to the effect of different spatial sampling for reanalysis data around the Gadanki station. Directional tendency shows that the percentage of updrafts captured is reasonably good, but downdrafts are not well captured by all reanalyses. Thus, caution is advised when using w from reanalyses.