Hello,
Some us of were mulling this over in IRC in a think outside the box situation. And I'm gonna open myself up for a lot of thrown mud on a stupid idea. I really don't mind, please flavor the mud first (little vanilla, maybe some chocolate).
I put forth a rather silly idea, rather than a tower to gather the data, why not a tethered weather balloon, metering package somewhere along its tether.
As far as the negative responses to you on your approach, I'm not going to comment, I'm not an engineer. As far as there always being negative comments... sure there are, and there are positive to ( A whle lot of them, maybe not to this post but keep reading).
The funny thing is , you always have the ability to discontinue the discussion. I've done it on some of my posts when I my idea was different than the curent norm (long time ago , strange derrick rigged tower with mounted solar panels) .
Basically at some point.. you just have to do what you think you should do. But don't blame someone for commenting if you put it out there.
Rover