Series
The Air Series
The atmosphere as something measured, forecast and moved around: why the upper air is sampled by throwing an instrument away, what an air quality monitor is actually counting, how a tropical cyclone forecast is built and what its categories mean, and how a refrigerator moves heat up a gradient. Part of Under the Hood.
How Does a Weather Balloon Work?
A weather balloon exists to answer a question a surface thermometer cannot: what the atmosphere is doing twenty kilometres up, right now, over this exact spot. The instrument is thrown away on every flight, the wind is measured without a wind sensor, and launches happen worldwide at the same two moments each day so the readings describe one atmosphere rather than a smear. Why satellites did not replace it.
Coming soon