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Climatology archive and accurate weather forecasts depend strongly on availability of observed properties of the atmosphere and can benefit significantly from higher temporal resolution of measurements on atmospheric temperature, pressure, relative humidity, wind speed and direction. Weather ballooning with radiosonde payloads can provide these data with relatively low initial capital costs while providing educational benefits for students, especially undergraduates in STEM majors. For example, recently we conducted a field campaign, Atmospheric Dynamics over the Gulf Stream (ADOGS), by launching radiosondes hourly during January 6 – 9, 2025 from New Haven, Connecticut. We observed rapid changes in the troposphere during that week and provided a great weather ballooning educational platform for students from Northeastern US, especially those at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs) and Emerging Research Institutions (ERIs). Our results provide practical field experiences that may benefit the planning of future radiosonde campaigns, especially those with ballooning education and student engagement focuses, by the high-altitude ballooning (HAB) community.
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This content will become publicly available on September 14, 2026
Application Notes from April 2025 Radiosonde and Ground Station/Tracker Intercomparison Study
Weather ballooning with radiosonde payloads can provide field-based, observational meteorological data for operational weather forecasts and research on the atmosphere and the climate. Despite the relatively low initial capital costs when comparing to aircraft/satellite methods, the costs of ground stations/trackers (GSTs) receiving and decoding the radiosonde telemetry may pose a significant financial challenge to institutions with limited resources and to flight missions with high temporal resolution (launch intervals of less than 3 hours). We conducted a Radiosonde and Ground Station/Tracker Intercomparison (RGSTI) study in April 2025 to evaluate some of the current low-cost GSTs options and the Sondehub (SH) multi-receiver radiosonde tracking network. Although yielding varied data based on radiosonde models, SH demonstrated less dependence on antenna alignment, longer radiosonde tracking and data telemetry, and the capacity of tracking multiple radiosondes with minimal hardware requirements and financial barriers. Our results provide a comprehensive review on the data matrix of different radiosonde/GST combinations and recommendations that may benefit the planning of future high temporal resolution radiosonde campaigns by the high altitude ballooning community.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1847019
- PAR ID:
- 10635991
- Publisher / Repository:
- Iowa State University Digital Press
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Radiosonde field campaign High temporal resolution Multi-receiver radiosonde tracking network radiosonde intercomparison ground station and receiver intercomparison
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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