Thursday, December 12, 2019

NC State Asheville Internships

NCICS is looking for several winter/spring interns for the following projects.
NOTE: All positions will be located in downtown Asheville, NC, in the Veach-Baley Federal Building, which houses NCICS and NOAA NCEI’s headquarters.
Project 1: The U.S. Climate Reference Network and Remotely Sensed Moisture Data
    The goal of this project is to apply The U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) soil moisture standardization methods on remotely sensed soil moisture data to provide a measure of agricultural drought conditions across the globle. USCRN has been collecting soil moisture data for over nine years, but only at its 114 locations in the United States. Satellites provide near-global estimates of soil moisture conditions. The student will learn to work with remotely sensed raster data sets to evaluate climatological statistics and generate a derived near-global data product. Comparisons between remotely sensed and in situ soil moisture observations (raw and standardized products) will provide a hands-on experience using geographic information system (GIS) technology. Proposed deliverables include a standardized satellite soil moisture dataset, an overview of the comparability between remotely sensed and in situ soil moisture datasets, and a presentation of these results and activities to leadership.
Project 2: Methodology and Tool Development to Support NCEI Data Product Risks
    NOAA NCEI’s Center for Weather and Climate (CWC) is interested in developing a simple tool to assess the risk level for its operational data products. The project include design and development of a simple methodology for assessing individual risk areas related to observatory health and redundancy, ingest, IT hardware, software, personnel, and access, as well as consideration of product sponsor, budget, and product priority score (Core system). For example, users may input a score of 1–5 for each of these using a common set of score definitions. Ideally, the tool would be spreadsheet-based and will include instructions and documentation as part of training the user. The goal is to begin a basis for risk management starting with something simple. The student would work closely with CWC leadership and other leads of the NCEI organization to understand needs, requirements, and use cases.
Project 3: Climate Customer Engagement and Analytics
    This internship project involves analyzing and summarizing user analytics and activities from the NOAA NCEI Regional Climate Centers and American Association of State Climatologist partners in support of the National Climate Services Partnership. The student will become familiar with Salesforce as a tool and will gain an awareness of the various uses and applications of climate information, especially at the regional and state level. NCEI will benefit from improved integration of regional and state level user analytics and requirements for CWC user engagement activities. Deliverables will include a summary report and presentation of recent activities and a template for continued reporting of these activities to leadership.
Applications must be submitted through the NCSU jobs website: http://jobs.ncsu.edu/postings/126270. Please provide a cover letter, including the project you’re interested in, a resume, and contact information for 3 references. The application process will remain open until the positions are filled.