Monday 22 April 2013

Revisiting the Piton des Neiges transect

A team of four people, O. Flores, P. Stamenoff who kindly joined the project for the occasion and two friendly volunteer assistants, A. Déléage and N. Gueroni, climbed the Piton des Neiges volcano beginning of April 2013. 
The objectives were : (i) recover the data collected by the climatic sensors in the upper part of the transect (1750 - 2950 m), (ii) bring the sensors back to the lab to assess the need for recalibration and recalibrate them in case, and (iii) re-set two sensors up. Indeed, during a former mission, we sadly discovered that one had been damaged and another stolen... 
 We started with a nice weather on Thursday morning at about 1500 m and collected data of four sensors on the way up. After an early wake-up, we then climbed the last part of the transect above 2500 m in a cold and rainy weather, but eventually succeeded in setting the upper sensors up and keeping all our fingers alive.
The new data will complete the description of climate on the sampling sites. We've noticed however some noise in the collected data, which could be due to low battery or drift after a too long period without calibration. Further enquiry required...

On the (steep) way up

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