Sarah RoseLab 11: Determining Winds by Tracking Balloon Section 8Group: Liz, Jeannie, MikeQuestion 1Because of the bad weather we weren’t actually able to launch any balloons but if I had to guess 4 potential aspects of this activity that would produce error that first one would be the observation of the balloon at the 30 second intervals. Error could arise from this because between the observation and writing down the observed height the balloon could have gained more altitude, this would affect the lab becauseit would suggest the balloon is rising faster then it is. Another place for error could come from the person recording the azimuth and elevation angle, again because all the data can’t be recorded simultaneously the angle and azimuth reading might not represent the data for the exact height the balloon is. Again because we didn’t actually do this lab I’m not sure if this could be true or not but that fact that we are depending on the balloon to be rising at a constant rate could be effected but verticalwinds if it is an especially windy day. This would effect the lab because the balloon would be gaining altitude faster then normal and maybe not be as likely to move alsothe horizontal winds. Also potential error could come from object surface observations if our group didn’t completely agree on the balloons location we could have less accurate readings. Question 2At 1840 meter ASL the weather balloon on April 12, 2013 is moving at 2.1 knots and 233 degrees SW. In Denver at the altitude of 1826 meters ASL the readings are 75 ENE degrees and 8 knots. The winds in Boulder (about 2 knots) are more calm then the winds in Denver (8 knots). The speeds and directions are both different. Denver’s winds are coming from the ENE and Boulder’s winds are coming form the SW. This might be due to the warm and cool front present over Colorado that day. Because Boulder is located NW of Denver it was experiencing different strength/direction of winds. I as difficult to find any archived data from the 12th. There does seem to be a slight pressure difference between Denver and Boulder judging by some archived surface maps which would account for varied wind speed/direction.Question 3The recorded wind speeds have a general trend of increasing wind speeds as the balloon gained altitude. The wind speed nearest to the surface was 2.3 knots and it increased all the way to 55.1 knots. The direction on the other hand had a lot of variation. At the surface the wind was coming form the East but it fluctuated as it ascended the last recoding that wind was coming form the NNW. This could occur because the day the measurements were taken there it was especially windy or the pressure gradient could have changed because of the temperature difference between the ground and 2840 meters above sea level.Question 4This information could be practical for people who fly planes because they’d need to know that surface information for take offs and landings but they’d also need to know the upper-air information (wind direction/speed) when they’re gaining altitude. This information would also be useful architects building extraordinarily tall sky scrapers, if they don’t account for stronger upper air winds their buildings might not be able to bend enough to account for strong winds and the buildings could be destroyed. They could build perfectly fit bases of the buildings that accountfor low winds due to the frictional layer but if the winds above the friction boundary aren’t considered their entire projects could be at jeopardy.Summary and ConclusionI think it would be redundant to discuss the errors that were covered in question 1, but potential errors could have come from objective human observation also assuming the balloon was rising at a constant rate. It’s hard to say what I learned from this lab because we didn’t actually go out an do itbut I do think this information is useful to pilots and architects as mentioned earlier. Based on this lab I think that the balloon had a lot of horizontal movement as it rises.I am basing this off of the Pibal Wind Direction graph that depicts vast horizontal movement in degrees. The balloon ranged from 87 degrees E to 210 SSW to 356 N soit exhibited a lot of horizontal movement as it gained