Met Balloon Launch

275/366

We've had a beautiful day today, with just a bit of cirrus cloud (enough for a nice big halo) and the outside temperature in a region of -30°C with next to no wind.

Each of the members of the Science Team covers the Met duties out of hours and on days off. The duties change throughout the winter (when it's dark we don't do normal day time Ozone observations), but essentially consist of: a synoptic observation every three hours starting at 0900 UTC and finishing at 0000 UTC; a Met balloon launch around 1050 UTC (so that it reaches an altitude of 100hPa at 1200 UTC), Ozone observations with the Dobson Spectrophotometer 5-6 times a day (times change depending on the position of the Sun) and take temperature and atmospheric pressure readings once a day for calibration.