A closer look at the climatological discontinuities present in the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis temperature due to the introduction of satellite data

Principal component analysis was applied to NCEP/NCAR (National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research) reanalyses data for monthly temperature at given pressure levels between 1948–2000. The series composed with the time coefficients of the main components were tested for possible discontinuities. The study proved useful in gaining a better understanding of the impact of satellite observations in the reanalyses. The period 1975–1979 proved to be the most affected by inhomogeneities, in particular in August–September 1976 and December 1978–January 1979. The latter time corresponds with the introduction of satellite infrared and microwave retrievals, which gave global coverage to the observing network. Inhomogeneities due to satellite data especially affect patterns in the tropics for levels between 700 and 50 hPa and over the Southern Ocean in the layer 500 to 250 hPa, i.e. the affected regions are larger than previously determined with other methods. Greatest shifts were observed in the tropics at 100 and 150 hPa, where the discontinuity is equal to 1.6–2.0 standard deviations.