A time constant is the amount of time it takes for a meteorological sensor to respond to a rapid change in a measurand until it is measuring values within the accuracy tolerance usually expected of the sensor.
This most often applies to measurements of temperature, dewpoint temperature, humidity and air pressure. Radiosondes are especially affected due to their rapid increase in altitude.
Famous quotes containing the words time and/or constant:
“We operate exclusively with things that do not exist, with lines, surfaces, bodies, atoms, divisible time spans, divisible spaces—how could explanations be possible at all when we initially turn everything into images, into our images!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The constant abrasion and decay of our lives makes the soil of our future growth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)