Ticosonde Costa Rica Balloon Sounding Project

Ticosonde is an ongoing collabration between NASA, NOAA and Costa Rican scientists to make regular observations of water vapor and ozone in the tropics. Since commencing in July 2005 during the NASA Tropical Cloud System Processes (TCSP), Ticosonde has made over 150 launches with payloads combining the Cryogenic Frostpoint Hygrometer (CFH; Voemel et al., J. Geophs. Res., 2007) and the Electrochemical Concentration Cell (ECC) ozonesonde (Komyhr, J. Geophys. Res., 1995) and a comparable number of ECC-only launches. The Ticosonde water vapor data represent the largest and longest-running single collection of in situ water vapor profiles in the tropics, and the Ticosonde ozonesondes are part of the SHADOZ network.

The Ticosconde launch team is based at the University of Costa Rica in San Jose under the direction of Dr. Jorge Andres Diaz. ECC ozonesonde launches are made once per week, and every fourth week the combined CFH/ECC payload is launched.

The Ticosonde water vapor and ozone sounding data are available on request from Dr. Henry Selkirk at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center or Dr. Holger Voemel at the Deutscher Wetterdienst, Lindenberg, Germany.


TICOSONDE SEASONAL CLIMATOLOGY

Seasonal Averages and Std Devs - T and O3

Seasonal Averages and Std Devs - Water Vapor and Sat Mixing Ratio

Scatter plots - WV vs O3


TICOSONDE INTENSIVE RADIOSONDE CAMPAIGNS

In addition to the ongoing water vapor and ozonesonde balloon sonde program, there have been five intensive Ticosonde radiosonde campaigns since 2004, four during Northern Hemisphere summer and one during winter. During each campaign launches were made four times daily from Juan Santamaria International Airport [10N, 84.2W] with Vaisala RS80, RS90 and RS92 radiosondes. These data are also available on request from Dr. Selkirk.

Ticosonde/NAME 2004

Ticosonde-Aura/TCSP 2005

Ticosonde/CR-AVE 2006

Ticosonde/Veranillo 2006

Ticosonde/TC4 2007