The Job

So, as stated in the previous post, I'm working for the BOM. This job is officially titled a Technical Officer, Level 4 (TO4). When on base the title is generally changed to Met Tech, meaning Meteorology Technician. Doesn't quite make much sense yet, but I'm getting there...

All four Antarctic bases (3 continental an 1 sub-antarctic) are run by the AAD who are also a Federal Government agency. In order for them to distinguish between them and the BOM, they refer to all BOM officers as Met *title*.

As the Met Tech, I'll be conducting about 70-80% observation work, which includes: describing the cloud types and height according to the BOM's classification rules; and sending weather balloons into the air with pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed/direction sensors on them. The other 20-30% will be the technician work, which is mostly maintenance and repairs. The equipment includes: all ground based sensors; the office network and PC's; and the electolyser (a machine used to generate hydrogen for the weather balloons).

There's a few extraneous jobs for other agencies, such as CSIRO, that I'll be helping collect data for and maintain generally maintain the equipment.

There are also various station duties that everyone on base helps out with, or has a leading role with and I'll go into those at another time.