Quality assessment of Automatic Dependent Surveillance Contract (ADS-C) wind and temperature observation from commercial aircraft

[摘要] Aircraft observations of wind and temperature are very important for upperair meteorology. In this article, the quality of the meteorologicalinformation of an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Contract (ADS-C) messageis assessed. The ADS-C messages broadcast by the aircraft are received at airtraffic control centres for surveillance and airline control centres forgeneral aircraft and dispatch management. A comparison is performed against aglobal numerical prediction (NWP) model and wind and temperature observationsderived from Enhanced Surveillance (EHS) air-traffic control radar whichinterrogates all aircraft in selective mode (Mode-S EHS). Almost16 000 ADS-C reports with meteorological information were compiled from theRoyal Dutch Airlines (KLM) database. The length of the data set is 76consecutive days and started on 1 January 2011. The wind and temperatureobservations are of good quality when compared to the global NWP forecastfields from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).Comparison of ADS-C wind and temperature observations against Mode-S EHSderived observations in the vicinity of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol shows thatthe wind observations are of similar quality and the temperature observationsof ADS-C are of better quality than those from Mode-S EHS. However, thecurrent ADS-C data set has a lower vertical resolution than Mode-S EHS. Highvertical resolution can be achieved by requesting more ADS-C when aircraftare ascending or descending, but could result in increased data communicationcosts.

[学科分类] 几何与拓扑