The following plots show a comparison of the temperature seasonal cycle between SSU data and vertically integrated lidar and HALOE satellite data. The weighting functions were taken from the Nash 1988 QJRMS paper (we digitized these a long time ago). The key point is that this exercise gives quite good agreement for SSU channels 26 and 27, but systematic differences for channels 36x and 47x. We get very similar results from the lidar and HALOE calculations. We can improve the fits by adjusting the weighting functions upwards: moving the 47x upward by 5 km gives very good fits, while moving 36x upwards 2.5 km improves things slightly (these are show as the red curves in the following figures). Note that the 36x fit still isnt great, but just moving the weighting function to other altitudes doesnt improve things.

SSU weights (digitized from the Nash 1988 paper)

dark line: climatology from SSU light black line: climatology from lidar, weighted with SSU weighting function red line: lidar climatology, using adjusted weighting functions for 36x and 47x red line: SSU36x adjusted upwards 2.5 km red line: SSU47x adjusted upwards 5 km Comparing seasonal climatologies of SSU vs. lidar data at Table Mountain (34 N) good agreement for SSU26 and 27

good agreement for SSU26 and 27 Comparing seasonal climatologies of SSU vs. HALOE data at equator red line: SSU36x adjusted upwards 2.5 km red line: SSU47x adjusted upwards 5 km