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Why can satellites have difficulty measuring thin layers of the atmosphere?

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Weather forecasting Doppler radars, such as this one operated by the U.S. National Weather Service at New Underwood, South Dakota, extract the Doppler frequency shift of the echo produced by a moving target by noting how much the frequency of the received signal differs from the frequency of the signal that was transmitted.

In the context of meteorology, satellites often struggle to measure thin atmospheric layers because of limitations inherent to their remote-sensing technology.1

While satellite-borne sensors provide essential global data, they generally offer less vertical and spatial resolution compared to in situ measurements, such as those collected by radiosondes. A specific challenge for these sensors—as well as some ground-based radars using UHF/VHF waves—is an inability to resolve thin, distinct regions of the atmosphere.21

A primary example of such a layer is the tropopause, which serves as the boundary between the stratosphere and the more active layers below. Because this region is frequently home to high-speed jet streams, meteorologists often rely on sensors mounted on commercial aircraft to obtain the necessary high-resolution data that satellites cannot capture.1