![CIRES scientist Patrick Cullis releases a weather balloon carrying an ozonesonde from NOAA's Marshall Mesa on the 50th anniversary of the first ozonesonde launch from the research site near Boulder, Colorado, in 1967. (Image credit: Theo Stein/NOAA) CIRES scientist Patrick Cullis releases a weather balloon carrying an ozonesonde from NOAA's Marshall Mesa on the 50th anniversary of the first ozonesonde launch from the research site near Boulder, Colorado, in 1967.](/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_width_1275/public/legacy/image/2019/Jun/PHOTO%20-%20CIRES%20scientist%20Patrick%20Cullis%20releases%20a%20weather%20balloon%20carrying%20an%20ozonesonde%20from%20NOAA%27s%20Marshall%20Mesa-%20NOAA-image%20extended%20and%20edited-1125x534-Landscape.jpg?itok=EVzoB5rl)
CIRES scientist Patrick Cullis releases a weather balloon carrying an ozonesonde from NOAA's Marshall Mesa on the 50th anniversary of the first ozonesonde launch from the research site near Boulder, Colorado, in 1967. (Image credit: Theo Stein/NOAA)
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CIRES scientist Patrick Cullis releases a weather balloon carrying an ozonesonde from NOAA's Marshall Mesa on the 50th anniversary of the first ozonesonde launch from the research site near Boulder, Colorado, in 1967. (Image credit: Theo Stein/NOAA)
MARSHALL MESA, Colo. - From atop this grassy mesa in 1967, scientists with the federal Environmental Science Services Agency carefully launched a weather balloon carrying a new instrument that could measure ozone levels from the ground to the very edge of outer space — and radio the data back to a ground receiver.
What started out as a modest research project driven by scientific curiosity provided the agency that would later become NOAA with some of the first insights into how ozone, a trace gas that blocks the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays from penetrating through the stratosphere, was distributed in the atmosphere. The instrument — an early version of today’s ozonesonde — helped NOAA develop knowledge and expertise that became vitally important when the Antarctic ozone hole was discovered 15 years later.
Read on: How one NOAA scientist turned his invention into a scientific standard.