HACKER Q&A
📣 tndl

Are weather balloons going to be replaced by weather satellites?


I am not a professional meteorologist, but I enjoy reading about numerical weather models as a hobby. I have launched a few latex weather balloons in the past, and recently I have been researching weather satellites such as Spire's radio occultation and Tomorrow's radar satellites. With their 24/7 global coverage, I wonder if radiosondes will eventually become obsolete. Is this a possibility?

  👤 runjake Accepted Answer ✓
No, radiosondes and satellite perform different weather monitoring functions and have different capabilities. They work together to provide a more complete picture.

The first paragraph of the Radiosonde Wikipedia article[1] sums up the differences well.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosonde

👤 is_true
I always thought google loon could be a good platform to replace weather ballons
👤 ksherlock
This spire blog mentions:

Low-Earth orbit satellites receive GNSS signals that have passed through and been refracted by the atmosphere. The level of refraction is dependent on the pressure, temperature, and water vapor concentration in the lower atmosphere and the electron density in the ionosphere.

--

... which seems like they would benefit from weather balloons (or another source) collecting that data first as a baseline. Anyhow, one other thing that weather balloons collect is winds aloft (which is kind of a big deal in aviation for flight planning). Tomorrow's website mentions they can get near-surface wind speeds but that's not good enough.

https://spire.com/blog/maritime/radio-occultation-in-less-th...