Oxford Physics: Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics: weather: maintenance:

Weather Station Maintenance Personnel

Don Grainger
Kallista Angeloff
Nicola Rotolo

Upkeep of the station is fairly minimal.

Once a day,

it is advisable to:

Check that the current observation on the weather station website is within the last five minutes. If not, login to atmlxdt055 and run `check_now' to print the last ten observations and make sure they are within the last two minutes. If not, debug.
Check that the AERONET observations from the previous day were uploaded to Goddard.

Once a week,

it is necessary to:

Clean the filter in the rain gauge. (If needed) remove obstructions from the top inlet and bottom outlet using a thin wire.
Clear obstructions and dirt from the baffle of the Cimel. Carefully clean the optics.
Clean the dome on the UV meter.
Check that the AERONET battery levels aren't dropping much below 11V at Valladolid University (requires an account, which you should be able to obtain).

Once a month,

it is necessary to:

The sensors on their mast

Clean the humidity sensor and remove obstructions from the screen surrounding it.
Clean the dome on the sunshine sensor.

These acts can be easily done after lowering the mast. This is done by loosening the two scaffolding screws as shown.

Once a year,

it is necessary to send the Cimel for calibration. This is organised in liaison with the Field Spectroscopy Facility in Edinburgh, who manage the instrument. Do not send it in July/August as the Spanish team are on holiday and it won't be returned until September/October.

Once every few years,

it is necessary to send the UV meter for calibration.