Rapid extraction of layer relative humidity, geopotential thickness, and atmospheric stability from satellite sounding radiometer data.

Layer moisture and temperature are important variables for forecasting local weather phenomena. The purpose of ths paper is to present a method to rapidly compute layer average relative humidities and geopotential thicknesses from satellite measurements of atmospheric water vapor and oxygen radiation emission to space. Both polar-orbiting and geostationary satellite data are considered. Analyses show that the relative humidity and geopotential thickness patterns from satellite data are consistent with radiosonde data. The relative humidity calculation is insensitive to the assumed temperature profile condition. It is shown that time variations of the atmospheric moisture can be monitored from a GOES-4 VAS sequential image. Also an attempt is made to derive the atmospheric stability index, total-totals, by use of satellite derived relative humidities and geopotential thicknesses. The results show good correspondence between the derived stability patterns and subsequent convective weather.