El Niño Rapid Response (ENRR) Field Campaign: Radiosonde Data (Level 2) from Kiritimati Island, January-March 2016 (NCEI Accession 0161525)

During January through March 2016, scientists led by the NOAA/Earth System Research Laboratory's Physical Sciences Division conducted NOAA's El Niño Rapid Response (ENRR) Field Campaign. Its goal was to document the ongoing El Niño episode in great detail, and in ways that could help researchers better understand the ways in which this El Niño affected weather in the United States and the impact of various high-resolution observations on weather forecasts. Intensive observations were collected over the central and eastern Pacific ocean from land, ocean, and airborne platforms during the very strong 2015-2016 El Niño. This dataset contains radiosonde data from Kiritimati (Christmas) Island, collected 26 January to 27 March 2016. These "Level 2" data have been reprocessed using corrected surface observations as initial conditions and then subject to automatic, objective quality control checks.

The radiosondes were released 2 times per day from (2.01°N, 157.40°W). The data resolution within each sounding is 1 s. The following variables are reported: time since release (UTC); geopotential_height (m); air_pressure (hPa); air_temperature (C); dew_point_temperature (C); relative_humidity (%); eastward_wind (m s-1); northward_wind (m s-1); wind_speed (m s-1); wind_from_direction (degree); latitude (degree_north); longitude (degree_east); altitude (m); upward_platform_speed_wrt_ground (m s-1); geopotential_height status_flag (); air_pressure status_flag (); air_temperature status_flag (); dew_point_temperature status_flag (); wind status_flag (); GPS status_flag ().