With the advent of Global Positioning System (GPS), together with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, the Radio Occultation GPS (RO GPS) technique appears as a possibility of obtaining atmospheric profiles remotely, with positive perspectives of applications in atmospheric numerical modeling. The LEO satellite mission denominated Challenging Minisatellite Payload of Geophysical Research and Application (CHAMP), although with the main objective being in the area of geophysical studies, it has also allowed studies about the potential of RO-GPS. This study is related to the evaluation of the atmospheric profiles quality obtained by the LEO CHAMP satellites over South America, comparing them to radiosondes profiles and of regional reanalysis of five years from CPTEC/INPE. The results of the comparisons between RO GPS and RSO profiles pointed out a mean temperature difference below 1 K and a standard deviation of up to 3 K, distributed in altitudes from 9 to 18 km. The comparisons of temperature profiles from RO GPS and CPTEC's reanalysis between 9 and 13 km showed that the bias is almost null and the standard deviation is around 1 K.
RO GPS; GPS meteorology; CPTEC Reanalysis; RACCI
