(Describer) Streams of light collide to create a globe filled with water. Title: Science Nation. On a small plane...
[explosion]
(woman)
Load the dropsondes.
(man)
We're cleared to drop.
(male narrator)
This cylinder is called
a dropsonde,
or "sonde" for short.
It launches from an aircraft
and falls through the air
gathering data about
the atmosphere as it descends.
It's a workhorse
of hurricane forecasting,
dropping out of
hurricane hunter airplanes
right into a raging storm.
Dropsondes have a huge impact
on understanding hurricanes
and predicting hurricanes.
(narrator)
With support from the
National Science Foundation,
electrical engineer Terry Hock
and colleagues
at NCAR, the National Center
for Atmospheric Research,
have been designing, building,
and improving
dropsonde technology
for over 30 years for
a wide range of applications.
(man)
This is the dropsonde
that NSF aircraft use
for our scientific
research purposes.
(Describer) Dean Lauritsen holds the small cylinder.
It's also extensively used by
the hurricane research people.
(narrator)
Compared to earlier models,
today's sondes
are lighter weight,
relatively inexpensive
and loaded with sensors.
(Hock)
We have temperature and humidity
sensors down at the bottom.
(Describer) Hock:
We also have a parachute
at the top.
(narrator)
As it falls, the dropsonde
checks its surroundings
two times a second,
including pressure,
temperature, humidity,
wind speed,
and wind direction.
We're taking vertical slices
of the atmosphere
constantly
as the sonde falls.
(Describer) Readings form a pattern on a monitor.
(man)
The winds are in
a circular pattern
going around the hurricane.
The center of the hurricane
is here.
They use this and other data
to classify the hurricane.
(Describer) Charlie Martin:
(narrator)
Hock and his team
custom-fit aircraft
with sonde launchers,
including this one
for helium-filled balloons.
(Describer) One goes up.
In 2010, American
and French researchers
deployed balloons
over Antarctica
that dropped 600 sondes
to study atmospheric conditions
and the shifting ozone layer
over a four-month period.
(Martin)
That has mapped
the Antarctic atmosphere
like it's never
been done before.
(Describer) Hock:
Every little measurement
shows up immediately
on the computer screen.
(narrator)
Such information
is helping scientists
learn more about
the atmospheric conditions
that spawn hurricanes.
Hock expects
this will help forecasters
make earlier
and more precise predictions,
giving people in the path
of a killer storm
more time to evacuate
out of harm's way.
For Science Nation,
I'm Miles O'Brien.
