The Daily Alaska empire. [volume] (Juneau, Alaska) 1926-1964, 1940-03-31
WEATHER BUREAU
MAKES GOOD Use
OF OBSERVATIONS
Upper Atmosphere Stud
led for Information OF
Value 10 Planes
BY CARL RUSSO
Junior MeteorclOgist

Soon after Benjamin Franklin and
some of his contemporaries demon
strated that weather travels, the art
of weather forecasting began to be
based upon synoptic weather maps
prepared almost entirely from sur
face data consisting of the famll-
lar meteorological e G m e n s: the
state of the weather, barometic pres
sure, temperature, clouds, etc. 1t
should be noted that cloud obser-
vations we're the only means OF OBJ
tanning direct information of the
conditions aloft Forecasts made
from this type of map may have
been adequate for issuing forecasts
CT storms at sea and the everyday
general forecast With the advent
of the airplane, however, more de-
tailed and specific forecasts were
required The need of supplement-
ing the surface data with additional
upper air observations became more
urgent.
To accomplish this, the Weather
Bureau has maintained rather
dense network of Astrological stations
which furnish upper air wind data.
At present there are about ia such
stations in the States and four in
Alaska. More recently the Weather
Bureau selected about 80 stations,
including Juneau and Fairbanks,
where a more complete description
Of the meteorological state of the
upper air is obtained daily by means
of the device known as the radio
Sonde.
1t is interesting to note in pass
ing that the first radiosonde OBJ
servations in the United States were
made at Fairbanks, Alaska, where
ten foreign-made Instruments were
released during the summer of 1888.
The SHAKESPEARE
A considerable knowledge of the
composition and meteorological state
of the atmosphere to height of
about 20 miles has been familiar
to meteorologiSts for some time.
That pressure and temperature de-
creased with altitude was familiar
Ito mountain climbers for 400 years.
In 1899 French scientist, Teisser-
-ence de Bort discovered, by means
OF a self-recording device, that al
though the temperature decreased
steadily at approximately 80 F. for
every 1000 feet, it ceased quite
suddenly to fall after reaching a
height of about six to seven miles
and a temperature of about -65
F. and continued thereafter for a
considerable distance at an almost
constant value.
This region where the tempera-
ture remains nearly constant is
known as the stratosphere of which
so much was heard few years back
when Professor Picard made his
famous ascent to a height of la
miles.
Thus we may consider the at
mosphere as being divided into two
regions: ID The tropoSphere-a
layer composed OF the lower six or
seven miles but within which all the
phenomena such as storms, the
highs" and lows" which we know
las the weather" are confined This
is the region of active convection.
90 The shakespeare - the region
which lies above the troposphere.
Here convection is lacking and the
weather is more settled. The high
wind velocities which are usually
found in the upper part of the
trosphere do not exist in the STRAIT
osphere. These are some of the ia
vorable considerations for the in
creased amount of flying in the
stratosphere. From the data OBJ
tanned by the radio-sonde which