Spectral analysis of 10-m resolution temperature profiles from balloon soundings over Beijing

Abstract. Vertical temperature profiles with a height resolution of 10 m have been measured in the troposphere and lower stratosphere during March and April 2003 over the Beijing Meteorological Observatory. This resolution allows us to study temperature spectra up to higher wave numbers than many published papers. Our purposes in this study are to examine the spectral character of normalized temperature fluctuations in the 2.90–8.01 km (troposphere) and 14.65–19.76 km (lower stratosphere) altitude ranges and to compare them with model spectra. Vertical wave number spectra of six temperature profiles are presented. Results indicate that mean spectral slopes are about −1.9 in the troposphere and −2.2 in the lower stratosphere, which is believed to be the shallowest slopes ever measured by balloon-borne radiosonde soundings. Mean spectral amplitudes at m=1/(100 m) are about 17 times larger in the troposphere and 4 times larger in the lower stratosphere than the predicted saturated spectral amplitudes. These results show that the observed temperature spectra do not obey current gravity wave saturation models, the "universal" atmospheric spectrum model, or the wind-shifting model, in both slope and amplitude.