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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-6592</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>A physical-consistency-based ensemble method for estimating boundary-layer height from radiosondes and its sensitivity to vertical resolution</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhang</surname>
<given-names>Minquan</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0008-6652-7944</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Xia</surname>
<given-names>Yunjie</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Sun</surname>
<given-names>Qinghui</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Fu</surname>
<given-names>Disong</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Shi</surname>
<given-names>Hongrong</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5650-0077</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Fan</surname>
<given-names>Xuebo</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4724-9570</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Xia</surname>
<given-names>Xiangao</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4187-6311</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Laboratory of Middle Atmosphere and Global Environment Observation (LAGEO), Institute of Atmospheric Physics,   Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment and Extreme Meteorology, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Beijing Meteorological Observation Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, 100089, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>09</day>
<month>11</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>44</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Minquan Zhang et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-6592/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-6592/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-6592/egusphere-2026-6592.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-6592/egusphere-2026-6592.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Planetary boundary layer height (PBLH) is an important parameter for understanding land&amp;ndash;atmosphere interactions and for weather, climate, and air quality modeling. Radiosonde-based PBLH estimates can differ substantially across diagnostic variables and methods, particularly when stable boundary layers (SBLs) coexist with overlying residual layers (RLs). We develop an ensemble method that obtains candidate PBLHs from nine radiosonde-based algorithms and evaluates their physical support using six consistency scores. These scores assess thermodynamic structure, shear&amp;ndash;buoyancy conditions, surface-layer similarity, temperature and humidity distributions, gradient contrasts, and wind structure. The resulting scores are combined with algorithm-specific quality and agreement among candidate heights to determine each candidate&apos;s contribution to the final PBLH estimate, while accounting for redundant information shared among related methods. Convective and neutral boundary layer heights are obtained by weighted averaging, while SBL heights are determined by first selecting a layer supported by multiple physical criteria and then averaging estimates within that layer. RL tops are detected separately. Applied to 12,266 radiosonde profiles at Beijing station during 2009&amp;ndash;2023, the method achieves a retrieval rate of 79.41 % at approximately 5 m vertical spacing. Increasing the vertical grid spacing to 25 m raises the SBL retrieval rate from 66.55 % to 74.26 %, whereas further coarsening to 100 m reduces it to 14.48 %. At 100 m, retrieval rates for convective and neutral boundary layers remain above 99 %, but estimated heights shift upward overall. The method provides an interpretable framework for PBLH estimation under complex atmospheric conditions and highlights the importance of high-resolution observations for identifying shallow stable layers and distinguishing vertically separated structures. Such an approach could also strengthen the observational basis for understanding boundary layer processes and evaluating their representation in numerical models.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="44"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Natural Science Foundation of China</funding-source>
<award-id>42275091</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Chinese Academy of Sciences</funding-source>
<award-id>XDB0760402</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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