Inside our preparations for MiRadOr What does it take to launch a campaign?
Preparing for a field campaign is not easy, as any scientist who works in the field can tell you. From the big picture to the small details, preparation is key to getting the most out of your time in the field. This is especially when studying the atmosphere: once the weather has passed, it’s gone for good!
Here are a few things on our minds about as we get ready for our November 6th start in northern Germany
Safety first!
First and foremost is the safety of the researchers. While fieldwork is rarely a 5-star experience, making sure everyone understands the working conditions and feels confident with using equipment is essential. We use a combination of gloves, safety specs, and steel-capped shoes when handling heavy gas bottles, such as the helium bottles that enable our balloons to fly.
Raincoats and warm clothes are equally important, the weather in northern Germany in November is famously wet and windy. Temperatures can dip below 10 C in the day, and sometimes even below freezing at night
Location, Location, Location
So why northern Germany? It is a crucial question. The goals of MiRadO require us to be in a coastal environment and our launch site sits just a few kilometers away from both the North and Baltic seas. Schleswig-Holstein is also famously flat, which helps us disentangle atmospheric effects from those caused by the surrounding terrain.
On a more practical note, the launch site is just a few hundred meters away from the Pavana meteorological mast, an important source of meteorological data which will serve as validation for the radiosondes.
Practice makes Perfect
Once we have ensured the safety and relative comfort our research team, then we need to make sure that our equipment is up to the task. That means testing, testing, and more testing. A few months ago, we set up our radiosonde antenna set-up on the roof of our institute to ensure we could receive the necessary telemetry data. Does everything work as expected? How does the software behave? These are important things to know before stepping out into the field.
But it’s not just the sophisticated science-y stuff that needs attention! We need to know if we have the right tools so that all the basics are covered: Where does the power come from? How will we connect to the internet? Does gas flow through out tubing systems correctly? Is our regulator… regulating?
And of course, it’s important to pack plenty of spares!
Our Noble Steed
When you chase the weather for a living, you need to make sure you have transportation you can rely on. Thankfully, the institute for environmental physics has us covered: a large bus designed precisely for our needs. With plenty of room for our equipment, the team, and gas bottles – not to mention years of experience serving our institute’s researchers – we can be assured that our noble steed will get us wherever we need to go.
Forecasting our success
Of course, its important to have a plan: what are we doing, how we’re doing it, and most importantly: why? Comparisons are key. The German Weather Service releases radiosondes around midday from the nearby city of Schleswig and we’ll time launches to align with their balloons so we can compare the results.
But we don’t want to be limited to just the day-to-day, this is cutting-edge research! Each day we’ll hold a call with our expert meteorologists to discuss upcoming interesting weather patterns and decide to release our radiosondes accordingly.
We will soon have a full post explaining that process, along with exactly what we’re hoping to find.
To Learn more, check out our LinkedIn!