Windborne Systems Inc

In-situ Atmospheric Data Is Vitally Important for Numerical Weather Prediction. Access to This Data, However, Is Significantly Limited by the Shortcomings of the Available Observing Platforms, From the High Operating Cost of Dropsonde Flights to the Static, Sparse Nature of Radiosonde Observations Which Are Limited Over Land and Nonexistent Over Ocean. This Leaves a Significant Gap in Upstream Observations Near Oceans and a Lack of Routine Targeted or High Density Soundings. Windborne Systems Has Developed a High-altitude Balloon Platform Capable of Prolonged Flight and a Dynamic, Controllable Altitude From Sea Level to the Stratosphere. the Long Endurance, Active Altitude Control, and Wide Altitude Range Allows for Over 60 Vertical Sections of Atmospheric Data to Be Collected Per Flight for Only a Few Times the Cost of a Radiosonde. Bidirectional, Cost-effective Near-real-time Satellite Communications Allow for High Resolution Data Downlink as Well as Navigation via Shifting Altitude Into Varying Wind Layers. With a Range of Thousands of Kilometers, These Capabilities Allow for Global Targeted Soundings, Leveraging Forecast Sensitivity Analysis to Maximize the Impact of Gathered Data While Only Requiring a Small Number of Widely Spaced Launch Sites. in Partnership With the Quantitative Observing System Assessment Program, We Propose Observation Campaigns to Evaluate the Impact of Such Soundings on Forecast Skill When Collecting Data Over the Northeast Pacific and the Continental United States. Windborne's Platform Promises Data at an Order of Magnitude Lower Cost and Significantly Higher Versatility Than Conventional In-situ Measurements, Potentially Leading to Its Operational Adoption by Noaa's National Center for Environmental Prediction (ncep), Environmental Modeling Center (emc), Modeling and Data Assimilation Branch (MDAB) as a Data Source. If Successful, the Effort Would Support Noaa's Pursuit of Innovative Observing Technologies to Benefit Operational Forecasting, Helping Improve Predictions and Understanding of Weather Systems Across the Us and Around the World.