Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: The Geneva-based UN agency, World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Friday that weather balloons are a key part of a vast, complex worldwide observation system, providing essential information for climate monitoring and forecasters.
Following recent news reports regarding the United States and Canada shooting down a number of flying objects, including a “spy balloon” that allegedly belonged to China, within their borders, WMO explains that weather balloons provide just a tiny fraction of the millions of observations gathered globally daily.
On Thursday, US President Joe Biden made public comments following days of speculation over 3 unmanned aerial objects that were shot down last weekend by the American military, saying that they were most likely tied to recreation, private companies, or research institutions.
Regarding the UN agency’s report, climate scientist Michael Taylor tweeted
Over 50 satellites collect information from space, and about 400 aircraft operated by around 40 commercial aircraft firms gather input from the skies, WMO says.
Data collected by weather balloons used daily by meteorologists
Some 1,250 drifting buoys, 400 moored buoys, and 7,300 ships aid from the seas in addition to 10,000 automated and land-based observing stations across the world, the agency explained.
Daily, free-rising latex balloons are released, at the same instance, from nearly 900 locations worldwide. Nearly 1,000 balloons gather observations every day that provide input in real-time.
The information of major significance that is gathered contributes to computer forecast models, local data for meteorologists in order to make forecasts and predict storms, climate monitoring and data for research to better elucidate weather and climate processes.
Computer forecast models that use weather balloon data are used by all forecasters globally, WMO said.
