Derivation of vertical air velocity from conventional Radiosonde ascents

In this work, we devise a method to estimate air vertical velocity from ascending radiosondes similar to that described in published results, but with certain differences in deriving the balloon parameters and the drag coefficient, while not considering explicitly the heat exchange between the balloon and the environment. We basically decompose the observed balloon ascent rate into vertical velocity in still air due to buoyancy force and that due to vertical air motion. The first part is computed from basic hydrodynamical principles and the vertical velocity is derived as the difference between observed ascent rate and the estimated still air vertical velocity. The derived values agree reasonably well (r=0.66) with vertical velocities observed with a collocated wind profiler radar, and the sources of uncertainties are discussed. Since vertical velocity is a difficult quantity to measure directly without expensive methods, derivation of the same from the conventional radiosonde ascents could be of great importance to the meteorological communities.