Some Comments on Meteorological Observation and Instrumentation Systems

Abstract

As a member of the American Meteorological Society and as the Administrator of the Environmental Science Services Administration, I have come to recognize the key role which instrumentation and observations play in our service and science. As meteorologists, our principal laboratory is the atmosphere about us, and therein lies the real crux of the observational and instrumentation problem which we face. For to do what we must to understand, monitor, predict and control the state of the atmosphere, we are confronted by the necessity on one hand of observing the physical state of the atmosphere on a global basis and, on the other, the micro conditions at the boundary layer and within clouds.