Using a Radiosonde

When I was a little girl growing up in Boulder, Colorado, I remember one day seeing something floating above our house. As it got closer and closer, I could tell it was a balloon. Then, it floated out of sight. Later that day, my dad went out in the field (we lived on a farm) and found an instrument box attached to a limp balloon. He said it was called a radiosonde.

What a cool word!  Radiosonde. It sounded so exotic and “outer spacey” to me. Daddy called around and found it was a weather balloon sent up by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (which had offices and labs in Boulder).

Radiosondes go up into the atmosphere and take measurements of wind speeds, temperatures, altitudes, humidity, and other characteristics. They also measure the amounts of gases in our atmosphere. These balloons have been major players in atmospheric science since the 1930s.

We got to take the radiosonde back to the scientists, although I don’t remember that event too well. But, to me, that radiosonde was a mysterious and exciting link to the sky and our atmosphere. And, it’s interesting to note that scientists use them every day, around the world, to measure changes in our atmosphere.