A CLIMATOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF TWO YEARS OF ROUTINE TRANSOSONDE FLIGHTS FROM JAPAN1

Abstract

A climatological analysis is made of Navy-sponsored 300-mb. and 250-mb. constant-level balloon (transosonde) flights launched from Iwakuni, Japan, between September 1957 and April 1959. Since the transosonde naturally provides information in a Lagrangian frame of reference, treated are the trajectories and trajectory dispersion, the magnitudes and periodicities of the velocity and ageostrophic velocity components derived from the trajectories, and the separation between pairs of transosondes as a function of time after their release. In addition to the research benefits, the usefulness of transosondes in providing routine upper-wind data over the oceans is pointed out.