THE STRATOSPHERE

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 20, 24 July 1934, Page 10

THE STRATOSPHERE

KELBURN'S BALLOONS

REMARKABLE RECORDS

LOW LEVEL FOUND

The series of radio-sondo balloon (lights for the purpose of wresting from the upper air some of the secrets of the stratosphere, which the Meteorological Office has been carrying out during.the last few months, has now come to an end. There are no more balloons available for such flights, and at present there seems no possibility,- of ' the' money being acquired to provide any more. The meteorologists, therefore, have to content themselves with analyses of the results obtained, having at the same time the satisfaction of knowing that they have achieved some pioneering work which will inevitably bear valuable fruit in the future. Twelve balloons were released. They were acquired, from the Lincoln Ellsworth Antarctic Expedition and were in charge of Mr. Holmboe, the Norwegian meteorologist. Some were of Kussian manufacture and the others of German, each having an apparatus designed to send out' messages by Morse code telling the temperatures and pressures experienced at various heights. Their main function was to ascend high enough to penetrate the stratosphere. WHAT THE STRATOSPHERE IS; The stratosphere is the layer of the atmosphere where temperatures apparently remain constant whatever may be the height at which they are taken. Below the stratosphere lies what is known as the troposphere, what may be called the ordinary region of the atmosphere, with which we are .normally familiar whether we go up in balloons or aeroplanes, climb mountains, or merely stay ou the surface of the earth. In the troposphere temperatures as a general rule decrease the higher the altitude. The boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere is called the tropopause. The stratosphere, it has been discovered, is much, closer to. the earth at the Poles than at the' Equator, its altitude varying roughly according to latitude' and ranging from': three to twelve miles. But its height is nowhere and never constant; it varies in summer and winter, and according to whether anticyclonic or cyclonic conditions are ruling;, being lower with the latter. Hitherto meteorologists' knowledge of the' stratosphere has been, derived from balloon ascents in the Northern Hemisphere, and it has been presumed that the stratosphere in the Southern Hemisphere behaves somewhat on the lines it adopts in the corresponding northern latitudes, although it has been suspected that the. land mass of tho Northern Hemisphere compared with the water mass of the Southern Hemisphere might cause substantial variation. The Kelburn balloon flights have definitely proved that this suspicion was well founded, and theso experiments have laid the foundation for a working knowledge of the stratosphere in the Southern Hemisphere which, when added to, will be of the greatest value to meteorologists and to the aviation of the future. POUR BALLOONS ENTER STRATOSPHERE. Twelve balloons left Kelburn on their aerial journey to the stratosphere, but only four actually got there. Two of the balloons fizzled out after ascending a negligible distance. The other teu rca-ched heights which ranged between 1.3 and: 15.2 >-iles, and four of these supplied, by means of their Morse signals,- information about the stratosphere, the other six failing to reach the- tropopause. The four successes were numbered among the last five flights, the meteorological staff having gained valuable experience from the previous failures, for to launch a radio-spnde balloon, with its apparatus and aerial, is no easy task. • . . The heights attained by the first five balloons were 6.7,. '4.8, 5.8, 7.1, and 1.3 miles respectively. Those heights, however, were not great enough to reach the stratosphere. ' But although -failures in one respect, these balloons nevertheless signalled much valuable information""before they burst. The sixth balloon which went up made amends for the comparative failure of the previous five. It ascended to a height of 11.7 miles, entering the stratosphere at a height of 7.6 miles. The seventh balloon burst at a hefght of only 4.7 miles without reaching the stratosphere, but the eight improved on this performance, for it -ascended 8.2 miles, encountering the stratosphere after it had ascended 7.2 miles. > THE CHAMPION ASCENT. .The ninth balloon proved to be the champion of the lot and furnished some most roma^able and at the same time unexpected data. Its maximum height was 15.2 miles, but whereas in the two previous cases the stratosphere had been entered at a height of 7.6 and 7.2 miles in this case the stratospheres was encountered at a level as low as 3.3, miles. Deep cyclonic conditions were prevailing when -this balloon was sent up, hence it was expected that tho str.itosphero" might be lower than usual, but such a low altitude as 3.3 miles was certainly not expected. Every test possible was made to sco whether there had been an error in the recording,; but none was found. ■The tenth balloon also reached the stratosphere. It ascended 8.2 miles altogether, the stratosphere on this occasion being entered at- a height of 5.6 miles. . The average height of the stratosphere above New Zealand, according to the records made by the four balloons which reached it, was, therefore, 5.9 miles, which is about two miles' lower than what Northern Hemisphere records for the corresponding latitude would lead one to expect. Tho height of the stratosphere: is, as. has been pointed out above, always varying according to conditions and season. The Kelburn 'flight's were arranged to give records of typical winter conditions, sometimes cyclonic, and sometimes the reverse. STRATOSPHERE LOWER' THAN ■THOUGHT.. . . . The upshoj; of theso experiments has been to establish the fact that. the straiosphero in these latitudes is lower on the average than had been deduced from Northern Hemisphere experiments. The Kelburn experiments havo been the first really successful ones of this nature in the Southern Hemisphere, but many more of a similar nature will have to be carried out before meteorologists know all they want to know about the stratosphere. Mr. Holmboe .will receive a further supply of balloons when he goes in to the Antarctic regions in the spring with the Lincoln Ellsworth expedition. Prom Beception Island he hopes to send up more balloons, and later on he hopes to co-op-erate , with the meteorologists of the Byrd: expedition. The records furnished by the balloons sent up from Kelburn furnished data which will be of immense value in solving meteorological problems. Even those balloons which failed to reach the stratosphere provided useful information, and this is now being worked upon. The layman is probably most curious to' know how cold it is up aloft. The variation in ground temperature at thel