CLIMATE MONITORING NETWORK FIELD TECHNICIAN

This position supports the University of California Natural Reserve System Climate Monitoring System, a network of 30+ Campbell Scientific weather stations. This position has a high degree of knowledge in the field of environmental sensors and has a high level of expertise in working with and maintaining Campbell Scientific instrumentation. The weather stations are located on UC Natural Reserve System sites throughout California - often remotely situated field sites This position requires extensive driving across California and staying for multiple days at the field sites on a regular basis. Maintenance and servicing of the equipment in these locations require operating with autonomy, the ability to analyze the unique problems at that site and develop a correspondingly unique solution. All equipment is networked and maintenance includes troubleshooting internet and satellite connections. The Climate Monitoring Network Field Technician is responsible for resource management and ordering of equipment and supplies. This position coordinates remote onsite work with the reserve managers and coordinates that the Climate Monitoring Data Management Team to make sure that https://dendra.science (data portal) is complete, up to date, accurate and easily accessible for researchers and other data users. They guide the development of operational policies for the maintenance of equipment, including the development of instrumentation audit protocol, maintenance interval, and network communications.

Travel Requirements

25-50% Travel to weather stations on UC Natural Reserve System sites throughout California - often remotely situated field sites.

Responsibilities

30% Perform station audits: Perform weather-climate station audits every two years calibrating or replacing instrumentation as required. Manage the equipment and travel budget and invoicing for instrumentation calibration and replacement. Organize local audits of equipment to test calibration and send equipment out for recalibration or replacement as required to maintain research quality data. If deploying new weather stations, test and calibrate instrumentation prior to deployment. Manage and troubleshoot internet communications via WiFi, cellular, LAN or satellite for the station. 

25% Monitor data streams and manage data: Check status of weather-climate stations daily to ensure they are online and reporting data. Write biannual status reports giving an overview of the climatic data being collected at each weather station and outlining the status of the weather station and any potential improvements that could be made to better meet the research requirements. Collect information related to instrumentation deployment, data collection, design of new instrumentation installations. Work closely with the Climate Monitoring Network Data Management Team and the data portal Dendra to ensure data in the database is complete, accurate and easily accessible for data users, leading data collection against success indicators. Participate in the development of a comprehensive database of environmental climate data that houses the data for research activities. 

20% Assist in network expansion: Designs implementation strategies for the expansion of the Climate Monitoring Network to additional sites and UC NRS locations. Act as a technical consultant in the planning of research activities and new site planning. 

15% Develop audit and maintenance protocol for climate monitoring network. Develop audit protocol to ensure climate monitoring stations are collecting research grade data. Develop a maintenance visitation schedule (annual visitation per station) to complete routine infrastructure maintenance, sensor audits, provide updates to metadata information to the NRS IT Team and replace aging instrumentation when necessary. Write protocols for weather station maintenance, audits, safety, and other activities. Stay up to date with weather-climate sensor and networking technological developments to ensure UC NRS weather-climate stations are state of the art, staying up to date on all associated research protocols. 

10% Staff Training: Train local reserve staff on simple tasks related to the maintenance of the station so that in the case of emergency repairs (e.g., communications/data stream issues, sensor failure) they can work with the UC NRS station managers remotely to troubleshoot the issues or determine that a site visit is required.

Qualifications