Ducting and Biases of GPS Radio Occultation Bending Angle and Refractivity in the Moist Lower Troposphere

Radio occultation (RO) can provide high-vertical-resolution thermodynamic soundings of the planetary boundary layer (PBL). However, sharp moisture gradients and strong temperature inversion lead to large gradients in refractivity N and often cause ducting. Ducting results in systematically negative RO N biases resulting from a nonunique Abel inversion problem. Using 8 years (2006–13) of Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC) RO soundings and collocated European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts interim reanalysis (ERA-I) data, we confirm that the large lower-tropospheric negative N biases are mainly located in the subtropical eastern oceans and we quantify the contribution of ducting for the first time. The ducting-contributed N biases in the northeast Pacific Ocean (160°–110°W; 15°–45°N) are isolated from other sources of N biases using a two-step geometric-optics simulation. Negative bending angle biases in this region are also observed in COSMIC RO soundings. Both the negative refractivity and bending angle biases in COSMIC soundings mainly lie below ~2 km. Such bending angle biases introduce N biases that are in addition to those caused by ducting. Following the increasing PBL height from the southern California coast westward to Hawaii, centers of maxima bending angles and N biases tilt southwestward. In areas where ducting conditions prevail, ducting is the major cause of the RO N biases. Ducting-induced N biases with reference to ERA-I compose over 70% of the total negative N biases near the southern California coast, where strongest ducting conditions prevail, and decrease southwestward to less than 20% near Hawaii.