In-situ atmospheric data is vitally important for numerical weather prediction

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) awarded Windborne Systems Inc. $886,375.16 under the Weather and Air Quality Research program (CFDA 11.459) for a cooperative agreement running from August 1, 2021 to March 31, 2023.

Windborne will utilize its high-altitude balloon platform to conduct observation campaigns evaluating the impact of atmospheric data collection on forecast skill. The company's long endurance balloons can actively control altitude from sea level to the stratosphere, allowing over 60 vertical atmospheric soundings per flight at an order of magnitude lower cost than conventional methods. Bidirectional satellite communications enable near-real-time high-resolution data downlinking and navigation via shifting altitude in wind layers. With ranges of thousands of kilometers, the system supports global targeted soundings informed by forecast sensitivity analysis to maximize data impact from a small number of launch sites. Windborne will partner with NOAA's Quantitative Observing System Assessment Program to collect data over the northeast Pacific and continental United States, with the goal of NOAA potentially adopting the platform operationally to benefit weather forecasting.

Access to this data, however, is significantly limited by the shortcomings of the available observing platforms, from the high operating cost of dropsonde flights to the static, sparse nature of radiosonde observations which are limited over land and nonexistent over ocean. This leaves a significant GAP in upstream observations near oceans and a lack of routine targeted or high density soundings. Windborne systems has developed a high-altitude balloon platform capable of prolonged flight and a dynamic, controllable altitude from sea level to the stratosphere. The long endurance, active altitude control, and wide altitude range allows for over 60 vertical sections of atmospheric data to be collected per flight for only a few times the cost of a radiosonde. Bidirectional, cost-effective near-real-time satellite communications allow for high resolution data downlink as well as navigation via shifting altitude into varying wind layers. With a range of thousands of kilometers, these capabilities allow for global targeted soundings, leveraging forecast sensitivity analysis to maximize the impact of gathered data while only requiring a small number of widely spaced launch sites. In partnership with the quantitative observing system assessment program, we propose observation campaigns to evaluate the impact of such soundings on forecast skill when collecting data over the northeast pacific and the continental united states. Windborne's platform promises data at an order of magnitude lower cost and significantly higher versatility than conventional in-situ measurements, potentially leading to its operational adoption by NOAA's national center for environmental prediction (ncep), environmental modeling center (EMC), modeling and data assimilation branch (mdab) as a data source. If successful, the effort would support NOAA's pursuit of innovative observing technologies to benefit operational forecasting, helping improve predictions and understanding of weather systems across the US and around the world.