The summertime ozone valley over the Tibetan Plateau is formed by two influences,the Asian summer monsoon（ASM） and air column variations.Total ozone over the Tibetan Plateau in summer was ～33 Dobson units（DU） lower than zonal mean values over the ocean at the same latitudes during the study period 2005-2009.Satellite observations of ozone profiles show that ozone concentrations over the ASM region have lower values in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere（UTLS） than over the non-ASM region.This is caused by frequent convective transport of low-ozone air from the lower troposphere to the UTLS region combined with trapping by the South Asian High.This offset contributes to a ～20-DU deficit in the ozone column over the ASM region.In addition,along the same latitude,total ozone changes identically with variations of the terrain height,showing a high correlation with terrain heights over the ASM region,which includes both the Tibetan and Iranian plateaus.This is confirmed by the fact that the Tibetan and Iranian plateaus have very similar vertical distributions of ozone in the UTLS,but they have different terrain heights and different total-column ozone levels.These two factors（lower UTLS ozone and higher terrain height） imply 40 DU in the lower-ozone column,but the Tibetan Plateau ozone column is only ～33 DU lower than that over the non-ASM region.This fact suggests that the lower troposphere has higher ozone concentrations over the ASM region than elsewhere at the same latitude,contributing ～7 DU of total ozone,which is consistent with ozonesonde and satellite observations.
GTS1 digital radiosonde, developed by the Shanghai Changwang Meteorological Science and Technology Company in 1998, is now widely used in operational radiosonde stations in China. A preliminary comparison of simultaneous humidity measurements by the GTS1 radiosonde, the Vaisala RS80 radiosonde, and the Cryogenic Frostpoint Hygrometer （CFH）, launched at Kunming in August 2009, reveals a large dry bias produced by the GTS1 humidity sensor. The average relative dry bias is in the order of 10% below 500 hPa, increasing rapidly to 30% above 500 hPa, and up to 55% at 310 hPa. A much larger dry bias is observed in the daytime, and this daytime effect increases with altitude. The GTS1 radiosonde fails to respond to humidity changes in the upper troposphere, and sometimes even in the middle troposphere. The failure of GTS1 in the middle and upper troposphere will result in significant artificial humidity shifts in radiosonde climate records at stations in China where a transition from mechanical to digital radiosondes has occurred. A comparison of simultaneous temperature observations by the GTS1 radiosonde and the Vaisala RS80 radiosonde suggests that these two radiosondes provide highly reproducible temperature measurements in the troposphere, but produce opposite biases for daytime and nighttime measurements in the stratosphere. In the stratosphere, the GTS1 shows a warm bias （〈0.5 K） in the daytime and a relatively large cool bias （-0.2 K to -1.6 K） at nighttime.
