Engineering at an Observatory in the South Atlantic Ocean
Published: Tue 13 Jun 2023
In February I was given the incredible opportunity to travel to St Helena, a tiny British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic Ocean.
I was part of a small team spending two weeks visiting the Met Office Observatory and undertaking a range of engineering tasks to ensure that the observatory systems stay as current as possible.
The Met Office have around 300 land observing stations and a further 75 Marine platforms which collect observations in the UK and overseas, and St Helena’s Observatory is one of the most remote land stations.
As soon as we landed the adventures began. We took the most elaborate route from the airport to Jamestown, St Helena’s capital, and saw breathtaking sights of the island.
From the barren, lower ground of the island with its huge cliffs and gravity defying rock formations, to the tropical cloud forests high up on the volcanic peaks.
One walk took us up to Diana’s Peak, the highest point on St Helena at 820m. As we reached the top of Diana’s Peak the skies cleared giving us an incredible view of the whole island. From here, I got my first glimpse of the Observatory where I would be spending the next two weeks working.
Our initial task was to replace the existing Meteorological Monitoring System (MMS) with our new, cloud-based observational system; SurfaceNet. This upgrade involved the replacement of original dataloggers and associated hardware with new and improved editions.
It also meant a full re-wire of the system, connecting the range of analogue and digital meteorological sensors including thermistors, wind vanes and anemometers and a LIDAR ceilometer, to the new dataloggers.
Upgrading to SurfaceNet means we will have a cloud hosted flexible, scalable and resilient surface observing system. The cloud platform, capable of storing 100 billion observations per year, will take advantage of next-generation COTS smart data loggers to provide two-way communications which will upload metrological data from the source to an AWS (Amazon Web Services) hosted cloud-based platform.
This system will improve lifecycle management and system maintenance whilst enabling an improvement on the storage and use of data received from sites, and customers will benefit from faster, more tailored data.
Regular routine maintenance schedules are unachievable here due to the remote location, so we made the most of the time we had. We replaced huge sections of cabling to futureproof the Observatory, exchanged the sensors with newly calibrated equipment, completed all electrical maintenance tasks, upgraded the Observatory’s communication system, and most importantly, taught the local staff how the new system works.
St Helena was the penultimate station to be upgraded from MMS to SurfaceNet, meaning we could return home and celebrate the completion of a major project. But before I left I made sure I soaked up the beautiful island by completing 11 of the 21 spectacular post-box walks, swimming with whale sharks, meeting the oldest living land animal Jonathan the tortoise, and spending time with the fantastic island community.
Since joining the Met Office in 2015 as a Level 2 Engineering Apprentice, I have been given more opportunities than I could ever have imagined. I have been able to travel around the world like my trip to St Helena, alongside having other professional development opportunities.
I feel lucky to be involved with such a supportive and encouraging organisation and I look forward to continuing to grow and diversify my career.
Now to spend the rest of that career finding a reason to return to St Helena and finish those post-box walks!