Week 02: Weather Balloons and Systems Thinking

Okay so I’ve been diving into weather balloons for Project 1, and honestly, the more I look into it, the more complicated it gets — which I guess is the whole point of systems thinking, right?

The GMO Thing

Reading that Easterbrook article about the GMO wheat protest was wild because like… everyone was right from their own perspective — which is kinda messed up when you think about it.

If I had to pick which system I vibed with most, I’d say System 8 — sustainable agriculture with long time horizons — because I really felt that whole thing about how we keep looking for quick tech fixes instead of thinking about what happens 50 years from now. The stakes there are basically whether future generations inherit a functioning planet or just a bunch of short-term solutions that create long-term problems. That’s heavy, but it also feels real, you know?

The opportunity cost thing hit hard too — like, all this money and energy going into one solution means we’re notinvesting in other potentially better ones. Kinda reminds me of how we approach a lot of tech stuff, honestly.

Weather Balloon Stakeholders

Okay so for weather balloons, I found three main groups with totally different perspectives on the same object floating around up there:

1. Meteorologists and climate scientistsTheir system is all about data — they need constant atmospheric measurements to make weather forecasts and track climate change. The stakes for them are the accuracy of predictions, which literally saves lives during severe weather and helps us understand what’s happening to the planet. They see weather balloons as essential scientific instruments that need to go up twice a day, every day, forever.

2. Aviation and airspace regulatorsThese folks operate in a safety and coordination system. Weather balloons are technically uncontrolled objects flying through airspace where planes are. Their stakes are preventing collisions and maintaining safe skies while also recognizing that weather data helps pilots. So there’s this tension where they need the balloons but also have to treat them as potential hazards. They care about regulations, tracking, and notification systems.

3. The atmosphere itself (as like, an ecosystem)Okay, this one’s more abstract, but hear me out — if we think of the atmosphere as a stakeholder, it operates in a system of chemical balance, atmospheric layers, and natural processes. The stakes are contamination from balloon materials that fall back to Earth (latex and electronic components scattered across the planet) and potential disruption, even if minimal. Every single day, hundreds of weather balloons go up and eventually come down somewhere.

   
   

Research Updates and Margaret Meeting

Okay so meeting with Margaret was super helpful — honestly, she basically taught me how to research, which sounds dumb, but like… actually.

Key takeaways:

• She helped me figure out what kind of guide I actually want to make — turns out I’m leaning toward either a performance piece or a video guide, which feels right for the “floating” theme.

• Gave me a bunch of articles I really need to actually read and not just skim (I’m guilty of this).

• The biggest thing was she showed me how to use hyper-specific keywords that somehow still bring up relevant stuff — like I was searching too broad and getting overwhelmed, but also too narrow and getting nothing. There’s this sweet spot of weirdly specific combinations that actually work.

Basically, Margaret created a (research) guide on how to create guides — which is very meta.

Stuff I’m still figuring out:

• How weather balloons relate to other floating infrastructure (satellites, drones, etc.)

• The environmental impact question keeps bugging me — like, we launch 1,800+ balloons globally every day and most people have no idea.

• The aesthetic of weather balloons vs. their function — they’re kinda beautiful in this mundane way.

• How to make a guide that captures both the technical and poetic aspects of these things just floating up there collecting data.

  
  

Random Interesting Findings

• Weather balloons can reach 100,000+ feet before they pop.

• The latex degradation thing is complicated — manufacturers say it breaks down like oak leaves, but that seems… optimistic.

• There’s a whole community of people who chase fallen balloons (balloon chasers? radiosonde hunters?).

• During the Cold War, there was more spying balloon drama than people realize.

• You can actually launch your own weather balloon pretty easily, which feels dangerous somehow.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at with this. The more I dig into weather balloons, the more I see these competing systems all operating around the same object. Nobody’s wrong exactly, but everyone’s optimizing for different things, which creates all these weird tensions.