Atmospheric balloon soundings have been made since the end of the 19th century. In recent decades, specific upper-air radiosonde measurements have become important for climate monitoring and atmospheric research. Here we show profiles of solar and terrestrial radiation measured with balloon-borne radiometers through cloud-free and cloudy atmospheres, which experimentally demonstrate the greenhouse effect by water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere. Absorption and reflection of solar shortwave radiation in the atmosphere and on the ground are shown. Thermal longwave radiation, emitted from Earth’s surface and then absorbed and reemitted in the atmosphere, shows varying absorption/reemission of upward/downward longwave fluxes due to changing temperature and water vapor. Clouds more strongly absorb upward and increase downward longwave radiation. Thermal emission into space is shown to be reduced by water vapor and clouds. Measured radiation profiles are compared to numerically calculated radiation profiles.

Since June 2017, the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III instrument on the International Space Station (SAGE III/ISS) has been providing vertical profiles of upper tropospheric to stratospheric water vapor (WV) retrieved from solar occultation transmission measurements. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the publicly released SAGE III/ISS beta version 5.1 WV retrieval through intercomparison with independent satellite- and balloon-based measurements, and to present recommendations for SAGE III/ISS data quality screening criteria. Overall, we find that SAGE III/ISS provides high quality water vapor measurements. Low quality profiles are predominately due to retrieval instabilities in the upper stratosphere that cause step-like changes in the profile, and aerosol/cloud-related interferences (below ~20 km). Above 35 km, the retrieved uncertainty and noise in the data rapidly grow with increasing altitude due to relatively low extinction signal from water vapor. Below the tropopause, retrieved uncertainty increases with decreasing altitude due to enhanced molecular scattering and aerosol extinction. After screening low-quality data using the procedures described herein, SAGE III/ISS WV is shown to be in good agreement with independent satellite and balloon-based measurements. From 20 – 40 km, SAGE III/ISS WV v5.1 data exhibit a bias of 0.0 to -0.5 ppmv (~10 %) relative to the independent data, depending on the instrument and altitude. Despite its status as a beta version, the level of SAGE III/ISS WV agreement with independent data is similar to previous SAGE instruments, and therefore the data are suitable for scientific studies of stratospheric water vapor.

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III on the International Space Station (SAGE III/ISS) was launched on February 19, 2017 and began routine operation in June 2017. The first two years of SAGE III/ISS (v5.1) solar ozone data were evaluated by using correlative satellite and ground-based measurements. Among the three (MES, AO3, and MLR) SAGE III/ISS solar ozone products, AO3 ozone shows the best accuracy and precision, with mean biases less than 5% for altitudes ~15–55 km in the mid-latitudes and ~20–55 km in the tropics. In the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere, AO3 ozone shows high biases that increase with decreasing altitudes and reach ~10% near the tropopause. Preliminary studies indicate that those high biases primarily result from the contributions of the oxygen dimer (O) not being appropriately removed within the ozone channel. The precision of AO3 ozone is estimated to be ~3% for altitudes between 20 and 40 km. It degrades to ~10–15% in the lower mesosphere (~55 km), and ~20–30% near the tropopause. There could be an altitude registration error of ~100 meter in the SAGE III/ISS auxiliary temperature and pressure profiles. This, however, does not affect retrieved ozone profiles in native number density on geometric altitude coordinates. In the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere (~40–55 km) the SAGE III/ISS (and SAGE II) sunset ozone values are systematically higher than sunrise data by ~5–8% which are almost twice larger than what observed by other satellites or model predictions. This feature needs further study.