Tethered balloon vertical profiling

Knowledge graph centered on Tethered balloon vertical profiling with 69 nodes and 175 connections. Top connected: Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Gothic, Crested Butte, climatological variability, Winter snowpack.

Method synopsis

Tethered balloon system flights carrying aerosol instruments vertically through the atmospheric column to generate profiles of particle concentrations with altitude. Pseudo vertical columns are constructed by pairing altitude-time measurements with concurrent aerosol data.

Synthesized from method descriptions across 3 papers using this protocol.

Procedure from a recent peer-reviewed implementation

Steps below were extracted from the most recent peer-reviewed implementation of this protocol in the corpus — Measurement report: An investigation of the spatiotemporal variability in aerosols in the mountainous terrain of the upper Colorado River basin using SAIL-Net (2025), Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Implementations in other papers (listed below) may differ.

1. Conduct tethered balloon system flights for vertical profiling
   Tethered balloon system (TBS) flights were conducted at Gothic in 2022 and Pumphouse in 2023. Each balloon was equipped with a POPS instrument and sent vertically through the atmosphere to generate vertical profiles of aerosol concentrations. Balloon altitude above sea level and time were recorded, with pseudo vertical columns constructed by associating altitude-time pairs with POPS measurements.
   Quantities: Multiple flights at 2 locations, altitude measurements up to several thousand meters above ground levelDuration: Flight campaigns in 2022 and 2023Conditions: Weather-dependent flight operations, clear conditions required
   Equipment: tethered balloon system, balloon-mounted POPS instruments, altitude measurement devices

Typical Equipment

• tethered balloon system
• balloon-mounted POPS instruments
• altitude measurement devices

Output Measurements

• vertical aerosol profiles
• altitude-resolved concentrations

Papers Using This Protocol (3)

Species Studied With This Protocol

Places Where Used