A Comparison of Balloon-Borne and Tower-Mounted Instrumentation for Probing the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Abstract An experiment comparing turbulence statistics measured from a tower and from probes attached to the tethering cable of a large balloon is described. The results indicate that some important parameters can be measured with adequate precision with little, if any, degradation from balloon cable movement. Momentum and heat fluxes from the two techniques compare well. The only parameters clearly affected are the mean and standard deviation of the horizontal wind speed. Relations between these errors and the lateral motions of the balloon are analyzed. It is suggested that measurement errors can be minimized by maintaining as large a separation between the balloon and probe as possible.