Dataset
Met Office Cardington: humidity profiles, liquid water paths and integrated water vapour measurement from a RPG Humpro microwave radiometer, 2016-2024
Abstract
The Met Office Observation-based research Boundary Layer Facility, at the semi-rural field site (18 Ha) of Cardington (52° 06′ N, 00° 25′ W, 29 m ± 1 m amsl) in central-southern England between 2004 and 2024, operated the RPG Humpro profiling microwave radiometer retrieving humidity profiles in addition to the liquid water paths and integrated water vapour paths using brightness temperatures measured at seven microwave frequencies between 22.24 and 31.4 GHz (this band in general being sensitive to water vapour and cloud). The liquid and vapour water path retrievals used a supplied neural network algorithm (which is trained with radiosonde data using a radiative transfer scheme). Two archived files are available, based on the time series (water vapour and liquid water) and profile (humidity) data.
A full list of NetCDF variables can be found in "Continuous meteorological surface and soil records (2004-2024) at the Met Office surface site of Cardington, UK." Osborne et al. ESSD (2025). This paper should be referenced in any research/publications pertaining to this dataset.
To ensure optimal traceability and transparency of data, comprehensive metadata is included.
Details
| Previous Info: |
No news update for this record
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| Previously used record identifiers: |
No related previous identifiers.
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| Access rules: |
Public data: access to these data is available to both registered and non-registered users.
Use of these data is covered by the following licence(s): http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record. |
| Data lineage: |
Data were collected by the Met Office Meteorological Research Unit, Cardington, during its operational period. These data have been standardised for the production of this dataset, following similar file metadata conventions for all associated datasets within the continuous hydro-meteorological record (2004-2024) at the Met Office surface site of Cardington, UK Dataset Collection, as described more fully within Osborne et al., (2025). This standardisation approach addressed, where possible, any known data and metadata issues. Data were then deposited at the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) for long-term archival. |
| Data Quality: |
Data are as given by the data provider. Please see Osborne et al., (2025) for a description of quality control and assurance applied (see online resources). No quality control has been performed by the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA).
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| File Format: |
Data are NetCDF formatted
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Related Documents
Process overview
Instrument/Platform pairings
| Met Office RPG Humpro radiometer | Deployed on: Met Office Meteorological Research Unit, Cardington |
| Output Description | None |
- units: g m-3
- var_id: abs_humidity
- long_name: Absolute humidity
- units: m
- var_id: altitude
- long_name: Altitude layers above ground level
- units: dB
- var_id: attenuation
- long_name: Atmospheric attenuation
- units: hPa
- var_id: pressure
- long_name: Atmospheric pressure
- units: K
- var_id: brightness
- long_name: Brightness temperature
- units: degC
- var_id: irt
- long_name: Infrared sky temperature
- units: kg m-2
- var_id: iwv
- long_name: Integrated water vapour
- units: g m-2
- var_id: lwp
- long_name: Liquid water path
- units: 1
- var_id: rain_flag
- long_name: Rain flag (0 = no rain, 1 = raining)
- long_name: Rainfall rate
- var_id: rain_rate
- units: mm h-1
- var_id: relative_humidity
- units: %
- long_name: Relative humidity
- units: degrees
- long_name: Wind direction
- var_id: wind_dirn
- units: m s-1
- var_id: wind_speed
- long_name: Wind speed
- units: K
- var_id: temperature
- long_name: air temperature
- units: GHz
- var_id: channel_frequency
- long_name: channel centre frequency
- var_id: time
- units: hours
- long_name: time of measurement
- units: degrees
- var_id: elevation
- long_name: viewing_elevation_angle
Co-ordinate Variables
Temporal Range
2016-06-02T00:00:00
2024-12-31T23:59:59
Geographic Extent
52.1047° |
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-0.4216° |
-0.4216° |
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52.1047° |