Daily upper-air atmospheric observations collected worldwide using radiosonde weather balloons. The dataset covers a five-year period from May 1958 to April 1963. Data collection was managed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Use Cases
- Analyze daily temperature and pressure profiles from radiosonde ascents to study upper-air climate variability.
- Correlate historical humidity and wind data from balloon trajectories with surface weather events.
- Use geolocated observation points to map historical atmospheric conditions for reanalysis projects.
- Validate and calibrate satellite-derived atmospheric data against in-situ radiosonde measurements from the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Strengths
- Global spatial coverage of daily observations.
- Five-year temporal coverage from May 1958 to April 1963.
Limitations
- Data is over 60 years old, limiting relevance for contemporary atmospheric studies without modern calibration.
- Unknown sample size and specific measurement variables (e.g., pressure, temperature, humidity) are not detailed.
Provenance
- Source
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), via NASA Earthdata.
- Collection Method
- Collected via daily radiosonde (weather balloon) launches at global observation stations.
- Time Range
- May 1958 to April 1963
- Freshness
- Data collection ended on 1963-04-30.
- Geography
- Worldwide