Development and application of the Ascent-Drift-Descent Radiosonde System (ADDRS)

Abstract. Balloon-borne radiosonde observations constitute a crucial component of meteorological sounding, which conducts a ground to upper-air “ascent phase” sounding. This paper introduces the Ascent-Drift-Descent Radiosonde System (ADDRS), an innovative system characterized by three observation phases – “Ascent-Drift-Descent” (ADD) – in which all three phases of sounding observation are executed through single balloon launch. Several key technologies were successfully developed, including the carrier (dual-mode balloon), the payload (System-on-Chip (SoC) module for radiosonde), Ground to upper-air data reception and control command transmission and data processing framework based on “Internet cloud + Instrument terminal” was established. Data quality control methods and data assimilation techniques of ADDRS were also developed. An interactive experiment encompassing observations and forecasting was conducted to evaluate the quality of experimental data at each phase of ADDRS. Numerical assimilation and forecasting experiments showed a positive (albeit not yet statistically significant) impact on forecast quality for both general cases and for Tropical cyclone cases. The pre-operational launching and assimilation of more than 100 such radiosondes started on 1 July 2024 and provided data over 1 year, and the number of stations continues to grow.