A new weather station has been set up in the Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve. Though intended to aid conservation research, access to its real time data should also be useful for hillwalkers and climbers.
© Dan Bailey
The weather monitoring equipment, which has been installed above Loch Tay at a height of 710m, has been designed to collect information on temperature, wind speeds, solar radiation, snow melt and even soil temperature.
- The data can be viewed here
Home to an abundance of rare alpine flora, the Tarmachan Ridge and Ben Lawers range are owned and managed by the National Trust for Scotland.
Detailed monitoring of the rarest species has been carried out for over three decades, but accurate meteorological data will help the Trust and geo-scientists understand conditions already affecting the flora and fauna in the region, which is vulnerable to climate change.
The station was designed with help from Dr Andrew Black, a Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of Dundee, who has previous experience of installing stations in Glen Feshie, the Scottish Borders and South-East Iceland.
He said, "The new station will provide unprecedented data of the mountain and weather conditions freely for the first time"
"Because of the location of the mountain and the sensitivity of the flora to climate conditions, the new station is in a great spot to give us a firm scientific underpinning for future research on the ecology, meteorology and hydrology of this iconic mountain area."
© National Trust for Scotland
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