Transcript:

 

BRAD NEWBOLD 0:00
Hello, everyone and welcome to Office Hours with the METER Environment Team. Today’s session will focus on atmospheric measurements. And we’re shooting for about an hour of Q&A with our experts, Jeff Ritter and Chris Chambers, whom I will introduce in just a moment. But before we start one housekeeping item. If you’re watching this video and you think of a question you’d like to ask our science experts, we encourage you to submit your question on our website at metergroup.com. Someone from our science and support team will get back to you with an answer via email. All right, with all of that out of the way, let’s get started. Today, our panelists our application specialists Jeff Ritter, and Chris Chambers. Jeff is a product manager for plant canopy and atmospheric monitoring instrumentation here at METER. He earned his master’s degree in plant physiology from Washington State University, where his research focused on leaf level gas exchange and the impact of plant and biochemistry on the measurement of the global carbon cycle. Prior to working at METER, he held a research faculty position at Washington State University in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences. Chris chambers operates as the environment support manager and the soil moisture sensor Product Manager here at METER Group. He specializes in ecology and plant physiology and has over 12 years of experience helping researchers measure the soil plant atmosphere continuum. So thanks for joining us, guys.

JEFF RITTER 1:20
Yeah, thanks, Brad.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 1:21
Hi, everyone. Hi, Jeff. Good tto see you.

JEFF RITTER 1:23
Good to see you.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 1:24
Yep. So shall we jump right in?

JEFF RITTER 1:27
Yeah.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 1:27
Talk about weather stations?

JEFF RITTER 1:28
Let’s do it. Great.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 1:30
Um, how do you view plan maintenance among the different stations?

JEFF RITTER 1:36
Sure. This is a question we get asked, asked a lot like what sort of maintenance is required? And how frequently should you be going out to do it. So I really see that there are different types of maintenance that you can do, and you need to account for all of them. So the three different sorts of maintenance that that I would say, just off the top of my head are planned maintenance, where you plan, I’m going to go out and visit my field site at some set interval, no matter what’s going on out there. And just because the data is on the cloud, doesn’t mean you should never visit your station.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 2:09
Absolutely.

JEFF RITTER 2:10
Even if you think everything is going well, you know, have a plan even before you install your station of how frequently you need to get out.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 2:16
Right exactly.

JEFF RITTER 2:17
And that’s going to be site specific, in some cases, you know, based on what’s going on around around your stations is going to impact how frequently you need to get out there to view it. I’m a big proponent of site pictures when you go out.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 2:30
Yeah mhm.

JEFF RITTER 2:31
So just have maintenance plan of were going to go out and do a site visit every three months, every six months, however often you can get out. Otherwise as needed maintenance. And that’s difficult to plan for, because that’s when something goes wrong, right and you need to do maintenance. So the third type of maintenance that can kind of play into that would arguably is not maintenance itself, but sensor calibrations. So of course, making sure you have a schedule and a plan for when you are going to do calibrations. If you wait to calibrate your sensors until they are out of calibration. Then you’ve waited too long, right. You know, right, you’ve got a period of time where your data is no good, or at least your data is questionable.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 3:09
Or you have some data quality issues of unknown impact.

JEFF RITTER 3:13
That’s right. So the biggest thing is, is making a plan. don’t anticipate setting up a station and not viewing it for a year.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 3:24
And some and some of its going to depend on the measurement technique, right? Like a tipping bucket versus a drip counter style versus what do they call those those percussion type?

JEFF RITTER 3:37
Yep, precipitation sonic disdrometer.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 3:39
So all of those are going to have different needs possibly different maintenance schedules. Cleaning funnels, is kind of a common one across, you know, across anything that has a funnel, whether it’s a tipping bucket, or a drip counter. So know the pros and cons of your instrumentation and what it’s going to take to maintain it.

JEFF RITTER 4:02
And depending on what weather station you’re using, a lot of them will have some sort of quality checks, whether it’s ways to to know how dirty the inside of your your sensors getting how level your sensor is staying. So make sure that you you understand that again, before you do before you install it. So so you know what you’re able to keep an eye on.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 4:25
And that’s an area where cloud data is extremely helpful. If you’re not sure whether or not you should have your data on the cloud, you know, it depends whether or not you need to know everything’s working okay at all times. Could you talk a little bit more about in precision in all in one weather station measurements? You know, sometimes you only need to measure rain. Is it better to have what type of rainfall sensor in that situation? Now, there are some trade offs in all in one weather stations.

JEFF RITTER 4:56
Absoultely the all one weather station is great for what it does. And it is the absolute best for easy setup convenience as far as data, having everything located in one compact package, but there are trade offs in you know, some quality of of the data.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 5:19
Right.

JEFF RITTER 5:19
Rain is a really good one. For example, if you need the highest accuracy rain, you typically actually want to put some sort of an altar type shield around your your rain gauge to to cut down an updraft, because that can can carry wind outside of your funnel.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 5:33
And in an all in one that’s going to interfere with your wind measurements.

JEFF RITTER 5:36
If you put a windshield around your all in one that’s measuring wind speed, that’s that’s not a great measurement to make. So you know, we, there are also different recommendations for for height requirements, for your anemometer versus your precipitation measurement, which, again, if using an all in one, they have to be essentially at the same height.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 5:58
And this is also an area where the World Meteorological Organization standards haven’t quite caught up with the technology have they.

JEFF RITTER 6:04
That’s right. As we’re seeing more all in one sensors out there, people are bending some of those guidelines a little bit to to meet, you know, what is convenient for having more weather measurements in their network versus a strict adherence to those guidelines for stations that do comply.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 6:20
Right.

JEFF RITTER 6:21
So I think it comes down to what precision and accuracy you need for each measurement. If you need the absolute highest accuracy, you may need a weighing precipitation gauge with a double altar type shield around it.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 6:39
And in that case, an all in one weather station just might not be the right sensor for you.

JEFF RITTER 6:43
Right.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 6:44
Do you have any weather stations to consider for solar farms, renewable energy, or utility scale projects?

JEFF RITTER 6:53
There are some things to consider there for sure. One thing to keep in mind is that meteorological observations are only one part in what’s required for to be compliant with IEC standards. And so IEC is the governing body that puts out recommendations for those renewable space. And with that, you know, they do have specifications that a weather station has to adhere to so certain measurement ranges and accuracies. And so, you know, METER has has a weather station that is compliant, at least for the meteorological observation side for for those but that’s one component of a full system that you need to control and look at data in the systems.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 7:42
And it probably depends on on what type of installation as well, right? Like solar farms need really precise solar radiation right?

JEFF RITTER 7:49
Right, that’s exactly right. Even even with something like the ATMOS 41, you still need a Class A thermopile pyranometer for for monitoring purposes to be fully compliant.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 8:01
So there’s not one answer here. It’s going to depend on on the application and what the end goal is. Any advice for research farm field measurements? Now this is say for agriculture? There’s a lot of different things to consider here.

JEFF RITTER 8:21
There’s a lot to consider. But the first one that jumps to my mind that a lot of very common question we get is how many weather stations do we need? And that question is very different depending on what you’re looking at. If you’re looking at environmental monitoring for a wide area, you want to find an area that’s representative of a big space. So, you know, keeping topography in mind and installation height when you were talking about something specific to a farm or a ranch or a vineyard. But you’re actually more interested in is the microclimate in a specific location when, what is the microclimate of where my field is and how is that going to impact what I’m growing. And so spatial density of the network is really dependent on the heterogeneity of your field.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 9:07
And in many of these cases, the ATMOS 41 or ATMOS 41W are really good options, they’re cost effective, precipitation is very accurate. You can calculate the evapotranspiration from the variables collected. It’s easy to install, easy to maintain, and very easy to set up on, on ZENTRA Cloud.

JEFF RITTER 9:28
Can you think of any advice for when you’re doing field scale research for a farm?

CHRIS CHAMBERS 9:34
Well, there is the cost factor, because it’s really easy to be like, well, I’m an operational farm. I need to I need to stay within a budget right. Anything I invest into this weather station is going to come out on my bottom line. And so I think some lower cost stations that might not be as reliable might not have as accurate measurements. You know, those, those might be really attractive. And I think the main thing is, keep in mind that the quality of the data that you get could impact important decisions that you’re making about the water management of your farm.

JEFF RITTER 10:16
That’s right, but the, the other side of that is then well, if I’m gonna buy a weather station, and it’s not gonna give me good data, why don’t I just use virtual weather anyway, and so virtual weather. And so there’s, there’s some considerations there over when and for what application you might use, you know, what is, again, I think it’s a misnomer to call it a virtual weather station.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 10:39
Because it’s real data.

JEFF RITTER 10:41
It’s real data that’s fed into a model. And then we get a grid, a global grid, where you can see what your weather should be based on on those data.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 10:49
Right. But and it works better for some variables than others.

JEFF RITTER 10:53
It works better for some variables than others. But you are, you’re making decisions. At a field scale, you’re almost always going to be better off to make those decisions based on data at your at your site.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 11:06
That’s right, especially things like precipitation, which has enormous spatial variability, and the virtual weather stations just aren’t that great at predicting percipitation.

JEFF RITTER 11:16
Yeah, cold air flow things that you know, are affected by topography that that’s not going to be taken into account in virtual virtual data. So, you know, if you’re looking at weather on your app, you’re probably looking at virtual data. But that doesn’t mean just because you put in a certain latitude and longitude, that doesn’t actually mean it’s specific to that location, because it’s not taking certain things into account.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 11:41
That’s right. And the further away you are from where the real data is collected, the more variants you’re likely to see.

JEFF RITTER 11:47
And there’s biases in virtual data. So if you are relying on a weather station, that is some distance away, you can least account for those biases, knowing that it’s at a higher or lower elevation. With the virtual data, you really have to constantly be ground truthing that, to understand what how that’s playing in. That’s not to say virtual data isn’t hugely useful, and important. But for making field scale decisions, you really need field scale measurements.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 12:15
Any recommendation on station siting, primarily for snow at high elevations, station siting in general is really important.

JEFF RITTER 12:24
Station siting is extremely important. And there are guidelines for not only height, but also distance from objects. And again, that’s measurement specific. So if you are measuring wind speed, for example, you should, you need to measure the closest nearby obstruction and be at least 10 times its height away. That’s different for precipitation, that’s more like four times the height of the obstruction. So that’s how you cite it relative to other objects.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 12:53
And it depends on your on the questions you’re asking.

JEFF RITTER 12:55
And it’s depends on the question you’re asking.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 12:56
Back to whether versus microclimate. And if in doubt, and you know, weather’s what you want, then check in with the World Meteorological Organization, they have standards that can that can help you cite your station and and how and where to set it up.

JEFF RITTER 13:13
Typically, for station height, we recommend two meters above the canopy. But again, that is entirely based off of what you were trying to measure.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 13:25
And some other things that you might not think about are, do I have a cell signal? Can I get my data out? It doesn’t do that much good to if you need to monitor data in real time or near real time. It doesn’t do you any good to put your station somewhere where you don’t get a signal. Even if that’s the place where you really want to put it that’s most representative. If you’ve got to drive out to your site, just to get the data, then, you know, you might be making decisions a week late. Is it worth it to choose a solution with more tier one or two tier two stations? And it’s kind of a quality versus quantity question, isn’t it?

JEFF RITTER 14:12
Typically, I would argue that you probably don’t need you know, the same weather station that you’re going to put it in an airport or a for a a vineyard or a farm.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 14:29
Now what is it tier one versus tier two? I’m an ecologist remember? So I don’t necessarily know all these fancy terms.

JEFF RITTER 14:35
Yeah, so the easiest way to think about it is just the higher precision and higher accuracy. You go and the more you’re able to comply with the World Meteorological Organization standards. That’s going to be your tier one station. So it’s going to be extremely accurate. It’s also going to be fairly expensive. It’s also going to be fairly maintenance intensive, it takes a while to setup, you know, cannot move it without a lot of effort, but you’re gonna get really high quality data.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 15:08
And so you kind of bump into the quintessential sampling problem here to have, do you have enough enough stations to cover the spatial variability.

JEFF RITTER 15:18
Right, but you run into the other problem of well, then maybe I should buy, maybe I should go out and make my own weather stations $10 Each thrown out there and I can have, you know, as many as I want. So there is a balance there, right. And so I think you definitely want a higher spatial density than you could get if you were just installing tier one stations, because you’re not looking at a microclimate, especially in an area like, especially in a vineyard. Where microclimate is very important for for quality of your of your grapes, that you need to understand that. So I would error more on the side of what we call tier two stations there so we can have higher spatial density.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 16:04
Do you have experience working with avalanches? Any devices that could predict avalanches?

JEFF RITTER 16:11
I don’t have any experience with avalanches. I wonder if you have, have?

CHRIS CHAMBERS 16:15
You know, I’ve, I’ve talked with a few potential clients about it. And this is an active area where we’ve been investing a lot of research and working with some key partners. The research has come a long way, I think there are some avalanche models, and the ATMOS things like some supplementary instruments that we make to the ATMOS, like our TEROS 32, Tensiometer and water content centers are really important variables to measure for landslide susceptibility. So I think this is a field that’s moving, that’s moving forward. And I think we’ll have complete solutions to help with that in a few years. How high can a chain link and exclosure be?

JEFF RITTER 17:04
Sure. So you know, an exclosure is a really good idea, especially in agricultural areas where you have animals or range. Yeah, are out on the range. I, cattle especially love coming up and playing with with instruments you have out in the field. So exclosure is a really good idea. The height again, is going to be dictated by siting guidelines. So it’s going to, you need to make sure you have an area that’s big enough to account for some distance away from the exclosure.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 17:39
Right.

JEFF RITTER 17:39
That also depends on how high above that exclosure you are putting it. So if you have, you know, a six foot fence, you’re going to need to be about 10 times away from that if you’re mounting right at that level. So that can get pretty big footprint.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 17:57
Right?

JEFF RITTER 17:58
But a lot of time you’ll see people play around with that a little bit based on…

CHRIS CHAMBERS 18:02
So there’s a few a few variables that you can tinker with, you can have a shorter fence, if it’s closer, or you can be closer with a shorter fence, a larger fence, you need to move it further away from your site.

JEFF RITTER 18:13
And again, those siting guidelines are based on which parameters you’re measuring. Right.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 18:17
Right. How to manage the issue of sensory calibrations? How often should they be done on your instruments?

JEFF RITTER 18:25
So you really follow your, your manufacturer’s recommendation on this. Most, they’re not just putting infromation that, you know, you don’t recommend calibration, just for fun, right? Something that sensors do drift over time that, that’s not…

CHRIS CHAMBERS 18:42
Some sensors drift over time, right?

JEFF RITTER 18:44
Yeah, I mean, it depending on again, on what measurement you’re making, most sensors that are relying on some electronic technique will drift over time. So it should be replaced. Or or at least checked, you know, verified, calibrated periodically. Most of the time, that’s going to be either annually or every two years. And we recommend every two years for the ATMOS 41. For sensors on ATMOS 41, yeah, every two years. And that’s just based on you know, we we’ve monitored how much those sensors do drift over time. And what our recommendation is then is based on that. So if you wait longer than your manufacturer recommends, there’s a chance you’re going to be outside of spec.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 19:27
I hate trying to figure out what to do with data that’s out of spec, it’s, please don’t do it. Just follow your maintenance schedule, get your sensors recalibrated, and then you don’t have awkward questions and a lot of assumptions to make about your data. Speak about maintenance, we kind of already did that. Anything to add or anything you want to touch on there.

JEFF RITTER 19:51
Be ready to do some maintenance. Even the lowest maintenance weather stations out there are going to have some you have to go out there and make sure that if you have a rain gauge with the funnel, stuff other than, than rains gonna get in there and you need to be ready to go and clean that out. So I would have a go bag, and just make sure it has everything in there. So every few weeks or months, whenever you’re able to get out whatever your maintenance plan is, make sure you’re getting out there, to do the maintance.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 20:19
So that you’ve got everything that you need, you don’t need to make multiple field trips.

JEFF RITTER 20:22
Yeah, I can speak from experience that it is very frustrating to get all the way out to the field and then realize you just left one screwdriver.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 20:29
And then it’s time to improvise, right?

JEFF RITTER 20:31
That’s right.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 20:32
Where would you install a weather station to study urban weather?

JEFF RITTER 20:38
I would install it, right, so my assumption is that you are wanting to make that measurement for human health and comfort reasons. And if that’s the case, you want to install it where people are.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 20:52
There’s a whole different a whole different set of variables, then, you know, if you’re out in a field or you know, the the buildings, channel wind and obstruct it and really change the environment.

JEFF RITTER 21:05
And you get a lot of heat island effects from from asphalt and pavement. So, you know, you want to make sure you’re taking that into account. So if you’re putting your weather station up on a roof, you’re going to have a different wind speed, you’re going to have much different air temperature. So if you want to know what the temperature is that people are feeling, you’ve got to have it down where they are feeling it. So that’s, that’s down at that level. Now, if you’re wanting to know what the wind speed is, across the top of your city, then you need it up on a roof.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 21:33
Or possibly modeling, you know, across, you’ll probably want some some weather stations at the top and some at the bottom.

JEFF RITTER 21:42
Right, right. Keep in mind, though, that that a roof is, you know, there’s a lot of obstructions up there. And if it’s if you don’t own the building, you just need to make sure that you’ve got a good way to to mount a weather station that’s up above those obstructions that’s still getting you the data that you are.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 22:00
Right.

JEFF RITTER 22:00
And for the question you’re trying to answer. So it I feel like, you know, we come back to the same answer a lot. And that it depends on the question you’re asking. But that’s really because it doesn’t do you any good to throw a weather station up on a roof if.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 22:15
And there’s no one size fits all.

JEFF RITTER 22:17
There’s not, yep, nope.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 22:23
If I have no other options other than mounting by wind sets on our roof, what do I have to consider in particular to get acceptable data?

JEFF RITTER 22:31
Well, your, your data is not going to be directly comparable. If if you are trying to compare it to wind sensors that are you know, two meters off the ground or ten meters off the ground versus one that’s at the top of a skyscraper, those those values are not going to be directly comparable.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 22:50
And the building itself changes the air patterns around it.

JEFF RITTER 22:53
The building itself changes air patterns as they approach so you need to make sure you try and get high up above even that even that building so, so any currents caused by the building itself are minimized. And then there’s things on the roof to consider make sure you’re not…

CHRIS CHAMBERS 23:09
HVAC or…

JEFF RITTER 23:10
Right yep, antennas. And if you are measuring any other parameters on a roof, those can be impacted as well. If you’ve got a weather station that’s out in the field, versus one on top of a roof, you know that roof is going to be putting off a lot of heat potentially depending on, you know what the material is and time of day. So keep that in mind that a built structure is going to look very different as far as it’s measurements.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 23:40
When faced with a less than optimum location, possibly in urban settings. Is it better to cite the anemometer five to six feet above a rooftop peak? Or at the top of a five to six foot ground pole?

JEFF RITTER 23:54
Yeah, I think that comes back to what we were talking about before depends on what you’re trying to measure.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 23:58
Right. But the pole getting it further away from the roof will probably give you more representative data

JEFF RITTER 24:04
Absolutely of the of at least the the wind at that height in the atmosphere. If you have it. You know, if you’re not using a pole and just putting it right at rooftop level, then you’re running into surface effects as well as it being too high for your measurements zone.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 24:22
Right. So if I grow all my crop production inside cages, in order to estimate correctly the evapotranspiration model, should I put the weather station inside the cage or should I put it outside? And will the assumptions of Penman Monteith be representative?

JEFF RITTER 24:41
That’s an interesting question that I could actually see it argued either way. But keep in mind that Penman Monteith, evapotranspiration is itself a model it is not directly measuring evapotranspiration. And even then it’s not modeling evapo transpiration for your system, you get out of that a reference evapotranspiration for a reference crop. So you already have to apply some sort of a correction to whatever you get out of Penman Monteith.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 25:12
And you might not be actually measuring inside the cage anyway, since you don’t really know what the fetch is for, for the, you know, the, where the relative humidity, although it’s not Eddy Covariance is, so it’s not as big of deal.

JEFF RITTER 25:29
Right, but I, you know, is it easier to see measure those parameters incident at the top of the cage that are not being interfered with? And then get some kind, some crop coefficient that is specific to within those cages? Or is it better to measure within those cages, and then you still need to get a crop coefficient specific to your to your crops. So I think it is likely better to keep it outside of the cage and then get a crop coefficient that is specific to your, your setup. But keep in mind that your crop coefficient is typically dynamic across the growing season.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 26:09
Right.

JEFF RITTER 26:09
So you can’t just have one and say this is my crop coefficient and development all year, that’s right. So there might be some pretty complex interactions if you’re going in a cage with your canopy with your crop coefficient. So might be some extra work to be done. But I think it’s going to simplify the setup to keep it outside.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 26:30
And just bear in mind that you might not see the exact conditions of inside your cage. How do you correct overestimates of air temperature due to instrument heating due to sunshine?

JEFF RITTER 26:43
Right. So if you are making air temperature measurements of almost any kind, and you’re not using an aspirated shield, you are likely overestimating air temperature in the middle of the day on some amounts by some amount, even with very good passive radiation shields, we see a spike of temperature even if it’s a tiny amount, when the sun shining on it is shining on your shield, because there will be some conversion of that to to heat that you are picking up. So the only real way to account for that is if you have a colocated measurement of solar radiation and wind speed at your air temperature measurement.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 27:31
And then with the characteristic dimension of your of your device, you can model out that radiative heating. Right?

JEFF RITTER 27:39
Right, so if you know the wind speed, if you know solar radiation, and some information about your sensor itself, you can make a model that is it gets you extremely close to what we would consider the reference of an aspirated shield.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 27:55
And that’s how the ATMOS 41 arrives at air temperature correcting for that solor radiation.

JEFF RITTER 28:01
And that’s, you know, that’s we talked earlier about some of the drawbacks of an all in one station. But one of the benefits is you do have these sent these measurements that are all colocated. So you can you can draw certain conclusions from that.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 28:16
And it actually works better than a passive shield. In most cases to correct for…

JEFF RITTER 28:20
Absoultely. It is better than…

CHRIS CHAMBERS 28:21
For radiation.

JEFF RITTER 28:22
Every passive shield I’ve seen, that model actually does a better job of correcting that.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 28:27
When trying to level orient weather stations, what level of precision should we be aiming for?

JEFF RITTER 28:34
It depends on the measurement, we’ll say the ATMOS 41 for the ATMOS 41, as an example, you need to be within two degrees of dead level. And there are several different measurements that impacts but that’s going to impact you know, every weather station that’s making a similar measurement. If you have a two dimensional wind speed measurement, for example, you need your station to be horizontal. If you have a pyranometer you know, it’s likely been calibrated for horizontal incidents of solar radiation. So you need that to be horizontal for that to be true.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 29:11
Your relative humidity sensor, your barometric pressure, they probably don’t care, they don’t care at all right, but you know, something like the ATMOS 41 has accelerometers on board, right. So that if you have cloud data, then you can tell.

JEFF RITTER 29:22
Yeah, that’s an extremely important piece of metadata to be able to look at, you know, oh, all of a sudden, I’m not getting the same solar radiation that I was getting, or what I would expect, well, maybe my station is off level. So rather than going out to the field and checking that, you know, you can look at cloud data and see right away.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 29:42
We had a case just like that last week, didn’t we?

JEFF RITTER 29:44
We did Yeah, somebody wasn’t seeing anything from their pyranometer, were seeing some other funny funny results and we checked and it was actually on its side.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 29:53
Y-axis was 90 degrees.

JEFF RITTER 29:54
Y-axis saying that the station fell over so.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 29:57
Sorry, that sucks. But It happens and just keep your stations level and, you know, use the tools that your manufacturer gives you to keep it that way. Can the ATMOS 41 fail to record rainfall data?

JEFF RITTER 30:14
So I think this speaks to what can happen. What can cause, you know, any given sensor to to not record.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 30:23
And not just the ATMOS 41 this, right, can be an issue with any weather station.

JEFF RITTER 30:26
Absoultely so we kind of touched on one of those is that you know, is your sensor is your weather station installed correctly. So the ATMOS 41 has a drip counter for measuring precipitation that needs to be level tipping spoons to though, although they’re not as sensitive, there is some amount that you take into account, if a funnel is clogged, it can just prevent rain from running through. And that’s a big one. The other one that I see that can can cause this is you know, these weather stations are just out in nature exposed to the elements. If you’re in the middle of a big lightning strike storm, and you get a direct strike, it can fry some or all of your circuitry, and all of a sudden, you know, there’s something that’s been damaged.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 31:14
Insect nests. You know, enclosures are a great place for insects to build nests. And they can either clog up mechanical devices like tipping spoons, or or or, you know, I think, interfere with the drip counters as well.

JEFF RITTER 31:33
Yep. So there are so the short answer is yes, absolutely. Any sensor can can fail, but there are things to look for, to know whether it’s a maintenance issue or a hardware issue. So you know, we have troubleshooting steps for the ATMOS 41 Things to look for. And there’s, there’s data patterns you can look at to tell Oh, this is a clogged funnel, or, Oh, this one just stopped. And it’s coincident with this big lightning storm. Maybe I should get out there and see if something got fried.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 32:04
And coming in the ATMOS 41 gen two, we have a redundant precipitation measurement.

JEFF RITTER 32:09
Yes, we’ve done a precipitation measurement. And we can measure the electrical conductivity of precipitation, which actually gives you a good proxy for is there gunk in my funnel currently?

CHRIS CHAMBERS 32:23
What kind of care must be taken to install a station on a glacier surface? Well that sounds like fun.

JEFF RITTER 32:30
Sounds like fun. First place my mind jumps to is making sure you have equipment that is designed for that sort of environment.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 32:39
And not all, not all glaciers are are equal either, right and get lots of different lots of different types from, you know, these massive, fairly slow moving moving glaciers in up in the Everest region, and very, very different dynamic near coastal glaciers, you know, like in Alaska or places like that. So there’s lots of different lots of different factors to consider there.

JEFF RITTER 33:09
Yeah, you need to ensure though, that the station you’re putting out is, is capable of making measurements in an environment where a, where a Glacier exists, right. So that’s, as far as I know, glaciers typically exist in in fairly cold places.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 33:26
So three seasons stations, probably not the best option.

JEFF RITTER 33:29
You might need a station that has some heated components, if you are needing to measure, you know, precipitation or keeping your pyranometer free. So you might have to come up with a setup, that you can have power out there, whether it’s solar panels or something else, but it’s going to be likely a question of, of how much power you need to make the measurements that you want. And so not all stations are designed to be measuring at the top of Mount Everest. So that’s the first thing I jumped to is, do I have the right equipment to put out on a glacier? And what measurements do I need all the time, right, right. If there’s one measurement that I need, but the station I have won’t measure it in the in the middle of winter, well, then that’s not the right station. What about what about setup on a glacier? What are some things to consider there?

CHRIS CHAMBERS 34:26
Yeah, it might be challenging to put a to install a pole in some areas. Right. And I guess it depends on the maintenance schedule. The stability of of the glacier. Yeah, there’s a lot of different factors there. Actually, I kind of want to go watch that. Go ask Campbell Sci on, this one. Yeah, they’re the ones they’ve got a great campaign going right now.

JEFF RITTER 34:54
Remote Data Access is also important to most data access is going to be huge. So unfortunately, a lot of times the more remote a place is meaning the harder it is to find some, like a cell signal means it’s even more important to have remote data access, because it’s hard to get to. And in that case, you might need satellite connections. So make sure that again, it comes back to what equipment you’re using, you know, there’s not, there’s not gonna be Wi Fi, if there’s not cell coverage, and you’re going to need to go a satellite uploading.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 35:23
A very important value is support. Many, many stations that you can purchase through web outlets, or mass that are just mass produced, totally lost where I am, okay, very important value is support. Many stations that you’ve just purchased off of a retail website, basically have no support. And this is something that we here find extremely important, we have a dedicated support team, you can reach us at, you can call in or reach, [email protected].

JEFF RITTER 36:06
And I think one of the reasons we value that so much here is because a lot of us have lived through this experience in both ways. I mean, we, a lot of us here have science backgrounds, and I have personally experienced, you know, having trouble with a piece of equipment, and calling in and getting great support, and other pieces of equipment, you know not so much, that’s important to my, my research and therefore my future, you know, and it’s just, it’s crickets, and there’s, there’s no help to be had. And I for one, you know, I want everybody who uses our products to be successful. Because when you put it out there, you need it to work. And if it doesn’t work, you need somebody to help you getting it to work.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 36:52
And really the data is the most important part, you can have a weather station with all these cool features. But really, you know, the data at the end of the day is and the quality of that data is what’s most important.

JEFF RITTER 37:06
I think having a strong focus on support is because we see it as a partnership. We are creating instruments for people to use, but our relationship doesn’t end once somebody has it in their hands.

CHRIS CHAMBERS 37:20
That’s exactly right.

BRAD NEWBOLD 37:21
Alright. That wraps it up. Thank you for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed this discussion. And thanks again for such great questions. And again, if you have any questions we didn’t answer please contact us via our website metergroup.com. Finally, you can subscribe to the METER Group YouTube channel and accept notifications to see previous episodes of Office Hours and to get notified when future videos are available. Thanks again. Stay safe. Have a great day.