The use of automatic weather stations (AWSs) is recommended, as these are becoming standard tools for environmental monitoring and are well-established technology. The ECN now has 14 years of experience of their operation (Sykes & Lane, 1996). The use of dedicated AWSs allows a standard data format to be used, reducing the time requirement for data management compared to using a mixture of formats from other programmes. If near real-time data can be made available over the internet, there are a number of other advantages, for example the suitability of weather conditions for fieldwork at remote.
