FAIRWEATHER FRIENDS
ST HELENA, SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN
Every day at 11:15am, a team of meteorologists on the Atlantic island of St Helena release a giant latex weather balloon into the sky (previous page). They wear goggles, flash hoods and overcoats ‘just in case’, because the balloons are full of highly explosive hydrogen (this lighter-than-air gas causes the balloon to ascend). As the balloon rises to a height of more than 30km, a mini weather station, or ‘radiosonde’, attached to the balloon’s neck, sends back second-by-second information on temperature, humidity, wind speed and pressure.
St Helena’s meteorological station (part of which is seen in the image below, being tended to by the station’s technical manager, Marcos Henry) is one of 190 such stations worldwide monitoring the Earth’s upper atmosphere as part of the Global Climate Observing System. Conditions here are tricky: St Helena is buffeted by strong winds, and its remote location, 2,000km off Africa’s southwest coast, means that imported goods are pricey. But stations such as this one are playing a crucial role in monitoring the long-term changes in our climate system.
A SLICE OF TIME
GEPATSCHFERNER GLACIER, AUSTRIAN ALPS
This story is from the November/December 2020 edition of Very Interesting.
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This story is from the November/December 2020 edition of Very Interesting.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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