30 years of upper air soundings on board of R/V POLARSTERN (1982-12-29 to 2012-11-25)

The research vessel and supply icebreaker POLARSTERN is the flagship of the Alfred-Wegener-Institut in Bremerhaven (Germany) and one of the infrastructural pillars of German Antarctic research. Since its commissioning in 1982, POLARSTERN has conducted 30 campaigns to Antarctica (157 legs, mostly austral summer), and 29 to the Arctic (94 legs, northern summer). Usually, POLARSTERN is more than 300 days per year in operation and crosses the Atlantic Ocean in a meridional section twice a year. The first radiosonde on POLARSTERN was released on the 29th of December 1982, two days after POLARSTERN started on its maiden voyage to the Antarctic. And these daily soundings have continued up to the present. Due to the fact that POLARSTERN has reliably and regularly been providing upper air observations from data sparse regions (oceans and polar regions), the radiosonde data are of special value for researchers and weather forecast services alike. In the course of 30 years (1982-12-29 to 2012-11-25) a total of 12378 radiosonde balloons were started on POLARSTERN. All radiosonde data can now be found here. Each dataset contains the directly measured parameters air temperature, relative humidity and air pressure, and the derived altitude, wind direction and wind speed. 432 datasets additionally contain ozone measurements.

科考补给破冰船极地号（POLARSTERN）是德国不来梅港阿尔弗雷德·魏格纳研究所（Alfred-Wegener-Institut）的旗舰科考平台，同时也是德国南极科考的核心基础设施支柱之一。自1982年投入使用以来，极地号已完成30次南极科考航次（含157个航段，作业时段多集中于南极夏季），以及29次北极科考航次（含94个航段，作业时段多为北极夏季）。该船年作业时长通常超过300天，且每年两次沿经向断面横渡大西洋。1982年12月29日，也就是极地号开启首次南极处女航的两天后，其完成了首次无线电探空仪（radiosonde）投放，此项每日探空作业迄今从未间断。鉴于极地号能够稳定、定期地在数据匮乏区域（海洋与极地）开展高空观测，其无线电探空数据对科研人员与气象预报机构均具有极高价值。在1982年12月29日至2012年11月25日的30年间，极地号累计投放了12378个无线电探空气球。所有无线电探空数据均可在此处获取。每份数据集均包含直接观测得到的气温、相对湿度与气压参数，以及衍生得到的海拔高度、风向与风速数据；其中432份数据集还额外包含臭氧观测数据。