A view from the roof of the Atlantic building, where our first station is deployed (circled in red). 
UMD undergraduate Ethan Heidtman poses with the Golf Course Station. 
UMD Undergraduates and Dr. Timothy Canty pose for the second station deployment at the UMD Golf Course. 
(Left to right) Logan Nocket, Dr. Timothy Canty, and Maria Nikolaitchik mount the A.V. Williams Station 
UMD undergraduates and Dr. Timothy Canty pose for our thirds station deployment.
Mesoterps is a student-led project in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOSC) at UMD. Our goal is the installation of a micronet of 10 weather stations around the University of Maryland’s College Park campus. The purpose of Mesoterps is many-faceted; we aim to monitor environmental data such as temperature and particulate matter in order to assess the impacts of the urban heat and pollution on the student body, as well as provide UMD students and faculty the ability to monitor current weather conditions right on campus. Mesoterps gives UMD undergraduate students the opportunity to work hands on, be it setting up and mounting weather stations or creating interactive displays of the data we collect.
Goals
The process that goes into getting approval, calibrating sensors, and mounting a weather station is long. Mesoterps aims to have three stations up and running by the end of the Spring 2023 semester! We also plan to incorporate particulate matter and CO2 into our station sensor suite.
Progress
So far, we’ve deployed stations at four locations: the Atlantic building, the UMD Golf Course, the A.V. Williams building, and Van Munching hall. You can view the data from all our currently running stations here.
Members
Maria Nikolaitchik – Student Project Lead
Greenhouse Gas Sensor Development Team
Jack Bowe
Megan Brown
Logan Nocket
Duncan Santerre
Pantea Vafaei
Website Development Team
Malcolm Maas
Jason Youm
Data Visualization Team
Katherine Lehman
Duncan Santerre
Jason Youm
A big thanks to our station deployment team: Ainsley Giles, Valerie Gorden, Ethan Heidtman, Nichola Maynard, and Logan Nocket!
The interactive station map and weather station webpages were developed by Malcolm Maas. The widget for NOAA weather alerts was developed by Jason Youm and Malcom Maas. All weather stations consist of Davis Vantage Pro2 weather stations and Raspberry PIs running Weewx, an open source software for weather-data collection.
Funding
We’d like to thank the following organizations for providing funding for the project:
- The MADE CLEAR Partnership
- Brammer Technology
- The University of Maryland Department of Atmospheric Science
Contact Information
If you are interested in learning more about UMD Mesoterps, please contact Maria Nikolaitchik at mnikolai@umd.edu.