I often wonder what the hardware used for various "earth data" measurements is, and how it works. Reading the missing heat article made me wonder how those Argo devices work/how is the data gathered from them/etc... I found good information on http://www-argo.ucsd.edu/, but I'm wondering if anybody has any good resources for this type of information in general (not Argo specific).
Eg. How the satellite radiation measurements work, do they use other measurements besides Argo for the ocean temperatures, how arctic/antarctic ice is measured, how do they gather deep ocean data, how do the air temperature thermometers that are used work, etc...
I can usually find some half decent info googling, but I often spend a lot of my time skimming articles trying to find one with the information I want.