Validation of the geostrophic approximation and the potential of long-term radio occultation data for wind field monitoring

Global long-term stable wind fields are valuable information for climate analyses of atmospheric dynamics. Given shortcomings of available observations their monitoring remains a challenging task. One promising option for progress are radio occultation (RO) satellite data, where the winds are estimated using the geostrophic approximation. Hence, in this study we focus on two goals, explored through European Re-Analysis ERA5 and RO datasets, using monthly-mean January and July data over 2007-2020 with 2.5° × 2.5° resolution. First, we compare actual and geostrophic ERA5 wind speeds to evaluate the validity of the geostrophic approximation. Second, we test how well ERA5 and RO geostrophic winds agree. We find the geostrophic approximation to work well within 2 m/s accuracy almost globally (5°-85° latitude), especially over the summer hemisphere; larger differences (up to about 5 m/s) may occur in the winter stratosphere. We noticed the effect of large mountain ranges on the wind flow as a wave-like pattern, also in the difference between RO and ERA5 geostrophic winds, pointing to effects of different geopotential height estimations. Generally, RO and ERA5 geostrophic winds showed very good agreement. In the long-term, systematic differences in decadal trends of higher than 0.5 m/s per decade were found at subtropical latitudes, mainly related to observing system changes in the year 2016 that influenced ERA5. Together with the validity of the geostrophic approximation, this indicates that the long-term stability of RO-derived wind field monitoring can provide added value to reanalysis winds, for the benefit of climate monitoring and analyses.