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13 August, 1998Thursday, August 13th, 1998 Hands - On Ozonesonde Launching! Another beautiful day to prepare for the launch of the ozonesonde. As before, Ian Kennedy, the high school intern and 17 years old, helped me to get used to all of the lab procedures. It is a great experience of reversing roles and to have a coworker of the age of my students. He was a great and patient teacher. Soon, we became a great work team. Ian is from a small town called Hudson ( no river Hudson nearby like in New York, though) on the plains of Colorado. He will be a senior this fall with a class of merely 100 students, a little smaller than our senior class at UNIS. Ian would like to study engineering after high school. How did Ian become a summer intern at the Climate Monitoring and Diagnostic Lab at NOAA? He actually won his summer position as an intern at NOAA through the state science fair. The project was the 2nd place engineering project in the state! It involved the development of digital holograms which are 3-D images made with a digital camera instead of film. Ian was placed with the ozone group in June and he has learned a lot about measurements and depletion of ozone ever since. (I have 2 weeks to do so!). He thought it was also a lot of fun teaching me because I was eager to learn! What a team! Thank you, Ian, for all you support. If you have any questions for Ian about his project you are welcome to e-mail him at: digidev@aol.com The following has to be done to launch an ozonesonde: * fill the balloon with helium * secure the balloon * attach the parachute to the balloon * check the ozone background * take the ground temperature and humidity and record in the computer program * connect the ozonesonde with the battery to start the pump * make sure the radio sonde is secure, is the antenna pointing down? * place ozonesonde into the white/orange box and secure with tape * attach everything to the parachute/balloon * holding the balloon with parachute in the left hand and the ozonesonde in the right, let go of balloon and parachute SLOWLY * let go of ozonesonde (hope for the best) and record time. Adjust antenna of radio receiver on the ground and observe recording of data on the computer monitor until bursting of balloon * observe drop-of-balloon- ozone-data on the computer monitor The photo below shows Ian and I tying the ozonesonde balloon after it was filled with Helium.
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