Vaisala Wins WMO Radiosonde Intercomparison

The WMO published their final report on the measurement results on Friday May 13th, 2011 on their website.

The results show that Vaisala's sounding system is the world's best-performing combination for upper-air in-situ observations, and provides the highest accuracy of data for a wide range of meteorological applications, such as numerical weather prediction models, climatology, and synoptic meteorology. The Vaisala Radiosonde RS92-SGP - operated together with the Vaisala DigiCORA Sounding System MW31 - achieved nearly perfect scores in all the measurement parameters, meeting and even exceeding international observation network requirements.

The RS92-SGP performed very well in both temperature and humidity measurements, being highly consistent and maintaining its level of performance also in demanding conditions. For an example, the RS92 was the only radiosonde in the Intercomparison that incorporates working protection against evaporative cooling, an effect that can distort the temperature measurement due to accumulated water evaporating and cooling the sensor. 

The WMO Intercomparison is organized every 4-5 years. It is a continuous four-week sounding campaign, designed to be an objective venue for assessing the qualities and performance of different radiosonde systems. The 8th Intercomparison was held last July in Yangjiang, China. Eleven radiosonde manufacturers participated, making it the largest measurement campaign in the history of modern radiosonde intercomparisons.