Training

I've been in Denver for the past week doing all kinds of training. I spent 3 days at NOAA learning how to run, trouble shoot and operate many atmospheric science projects and global monitoring systems.  I learned how to take air samples in fancy glass flasks that are sampled all over the world in the same way to be returned to Boulder for testing. So for this job I will be one of the front lines in the creation of this graph:

These data points combined with all the other NOAA sites around the world helps NOAA get an idea of the global health of our atmosphere.  I will also be measuring snow accumulation, wind speed, humidity, ozone, aerosols, CFCs, and other trace gases just name a few. Many of these projects have multiple redundancies. 

I received tower training and tower rescue training because my fellow science tech and I will be doing some tower climbing to clean inlet lines to keep instruments from clogging with snow and ice. We will also have to keep the meteorological instruments clear of this "rime" (the snow/ice that builds up on everything fairly quickly in the winter)

 We trained on more complex scenarios to deal with after learning how to properly climb the tower, including raising an unconscious climber off several under tension safety lines and disconnecting them and lowering them down and away from the tower, using an anchor on the ground. (This was the most complex scenario, and we worked up to that, hitting all the easier ones first). All of this will be much more difficult in the dark and cold so it's good to practice as much as possible now.

We also received some fire extinguisher training. All crew members have either worked in Antarctica or at Summit (or both) perviously so we were able to skip the cold weather implications/precautions PowerPoint and got a good talk from our on call winter doctor about altitude.

Looking forward to flying out on Monday to Iceland and then on to Greenland a day later if weather cooperates!