Ballooning

Before I head on down to the ice, I thought I'd tell you a little about what we do here at UW. The group I am a part of launches balloons carrying up to 150 pounds of scientific equipment. These instruments measure ozone and aerosols. As the balloon rises in the atmosphere, we get what are called soundings of all different atmospheric elements (such as temperature, pressure, etc.) and profiles of the different things we are measuring. In Antarctica, we will mainly be focusing on the ozone, as we will be there in a time when the ozone hole is present.

Here is an example of the balloons we launch here in Laramie. We launch at dawn because winds tend to be relatively still at this time of day, and there is very little air traffic. These balloons can reach 100,000 ft.

And the whole set up of balloon, parachute and instruments.

While I have been on plenty of Laramie launches in the middle of January (cold, cold, cold), I think Antarctica will be a whole new cold.