At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, Gonghe County, Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province.
Passing through the sandy and gravel dirt road of the pastoral area, winding up the gap between the mountain wall and the cliff, you will arrive at the Wariguan National Atmospheric Background Station (hereinafter referred to as the "Wariguan Background Station"). 
In winter, the snow-capped Wali Pass background station is pictured in Jinquancai.
In September 1994, at an altitude of 3,816 meters above sea level, this background station was erected, becoming the highest altitude among the 32 global atmospheric background stations of the World Meteorological Organization's Global Atmospheric Observation Network (WMO GAW), and the only global atmospheric background station set up in the hinterland of the Eurasian continent. Since then, generations of observers have been stationed here, recording the pulse of the earth's respiration, accumulating accurate, continuous and globally representative greenhouse gas observation data for nearly 30 years, contributing China's wisdom and strength to climate change and related research. 
The "Warikan curve" is in perfect agreement with the observations from the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii, USA, since the 50s of the 20th century.
Today, the "New Year Walk to the Grassroots" reporting team will witness another point on this long curve.
The coordinates of a day are more than 140,000 data and 20,000 steps(a).The day of the main observer at the Wari Guan Bendi station usually begins at 7:30 a.m. Wake up, spend 20 minutes packing up, walk 10 minutes to the observation site hundreds of meters away, inspect each equipment in the faint morning light, and then return to the rooftop on the third floor of the business building. 
Instruments and equipment on the roof of the third floor of the business building of the Waliguan background station Figure The Jinquancai rooftop is more like a test base, on which stands many advanced equipment such as photometers, mass spectrometers, and negative oxygen ion monitoring stations, many of which belong to the observation projects cooperated by the Waliguan background station and universities and scientific research institutes. After checking the "health status" of each equipment, I went down to the second floor, and in front of the glass compartments labeled with "aerosols" and "greenhouse gases", there were devices and data monitoring displays in different categories - it is no exaggeration to say that this is the "business lifeblood" of the Wari Guandi Station.
The "Grassroots Walk in the New Year" reporting team interviewed Huang Jianqing, a first-generation observer, on the rooftop of the business building of the Waliguan Background Station Figure Ye Haiying made sure that the equipment was operating normally and the data was accurate one by one, and this round of inspection was over.
In the afternoon, the reporter followed Yang Hao, the observer on duty today, and ran around, just in the indoor inspection link, the pedometer equipment displayed: 2526 steps. 
In the motion monitoring software, the number of steps after following the observer for a lap of indoor inspection: 2526 steps This day shift, often from 8 o'clock to 2 o'clock the next day, is calculated according to at least every two hours, and this whole process has to go through 8 times. According to the pace of adults, in just one day of inspection, the observer can walk 16 kilometers without leaving home, and the length of the Wariguan mountain is only 21 kilometers from north to south. And that's just the "usual" time. There are also some "unusual" tasks that require more painstaking - such as sampling greenhouse gas cylinders every Wednesday, and conducting thorough "physical examinations", dust removal, obstacle removal, and renewal ...... for different instruments and equipment in different methods every month, quarter, semi-annual, and every year
Greenhouse gas cylinder sampling site on January 24 Picture: Li Zishuo There are also some "unusual" weather that requires more caution – roaring winds have lifted the roofs of old business buildings, heavy snow has blocked the only way up the mountain, and sudden drops in temperature can exacerbate altitude sickness, making people suddenly dizzy, short of breath, and ......unable to sleep at nightAnd these "unusual", these small changes, these horrors when watching the roof suddenly disappear; the struggle of "swimming" to the observation field with one foot in the snow that sank into the thigh; Supporting each other to carry supplies and equipment back to the station, they stumbled on the frozen slippery mountain road and saw the cliffs next to them. When I can't sleep, I feel creepy when I hear the howl of a wild wolf......The observers were unexpectedly enthusiastic when they recalled. That look was like seeing a straight line suddenly rise and fall. (b).In the words of Wang Ningzhang, deputy station director, life in the mountains is sometimes in a state of "no social support". This is because the atmospheric background station requires the observation of the natural content of various components of the atmosphere under the condition that it is not affected by human activities, so it is mostly built in areas that are inaccessible and far away from pollution sources, and also requires observers not to light fires and stir-fry vegetables when working and living, and to reduce human interference activities such as vehicle traffic as much as possible. 
In order to avoid the "disconnection" of life on and off the mountain to the greatest extent, the station has been more staffed in recent years, and eight observers work in pairs and in shifts of 10 days. I thought that we could still talk to each other when we were fine, "But sometimes, you have been facing the same face for the past 10 days, and you don't want to say anything to him." Huang Jianqing, the first generation of observers who has taken root in Wari Guanshan since the establishment of the station, couldn't help but "complain". The Waliguan Background Station has a special identity and many observation projects, and it still needs to be manually guarded here. 
The "New Year Walk to the Grassroots" reporting team is recording the greenhouse gas cylinder sampling process, which is one of the items that need to be manually operated on the station Figure Gao Han And reconciling with loneliness and maintaining a high degree of concentration and rigor in a calm life is a compulsory course for every observer at the Waliguan Background Station. In the past 30 years, more than 10,000 days and nights, more than 30 projects and more than 100 atmospheric components have been observed every day in an all-weather and high-density manner, ensuring that the more than 140,000 data generated are accurate and reliable, and meet international standards and ......But people are not machines. Day after day, year after year, they devote themselves to highly repetitive work, but they always maintain high efficiency, precision, and even amazing enthusiasm, because there is something in their hearts that provides a steady stream of motivation. What is it? The romance of the meteorologist is "half sun, half moon".(a).In order to try to figure out the answer to this question, the reporter first caught Huang Jianqing. The 60-year-old and the 30-year-old Wari Guan Bundi Station participated in each other's most important 30 years of life. In April 1990, Huang Jianqing, who was originally an observer at the radar station on the hill next door, was transferred to participate in the observation and sampling of relevant data in the preliminary demonstration of the Waliguan background station. "Changing from one mountain to another" is nothing new, but Huang Jianqing believes that since it is the work assigned to him, he must do it well in a down-to-earth manner. 
Huang Jianqing when he was young Photo provided by the interviewee At that time, the observation equipment that arrived at Wariguan Mountain was the most advanced, not to mention the "zero-based" Huang Jianqing, many observers had never seen it. In order to find out their "temper", every time they come to a piece of equipment, they will follow the experts from Beijing and foreign countries, while looking carefully, not letting go of every installation and commissioning step, while asking in detail, and familiarizing themselves with the equipment in the shortest possible time.
But sometimes Huang Jianqing's questions are only met with a cold sentence from a foreign expert: "You don't need to know this." So what can be done? You can only "gnaw" the manual in a solid manner, and you can only grasp every fault in the operation of the equipment, and ponder its internal structure and operating principle in the process of disassembly and assembly. Every time, getting the equipment up and running gives him a special sense of accomplishment.
Huang Jianqing in observation Figure Jinquancai Huang Jianqing at that time probably didn't expect that this "sense of achievement" could last so long: in the past 30 years, more advanced equipment has continued to come to the station, "from 2 units that year, to more than 20 units now, including our own domestic greenhouse gas equipment for debugging on the station, it is really different." ”(b).In 2011, after graduating from Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Wang Ningzhang, a "post-80s" generation, returned to Qinghai with the ideal of "contributing to his hometown" and came to Wariguan Station. When he first arrived at the mountain, he was very excited, the sky was high, the grass was green, and the gophers probing from time to time on the underlying surface were also cute. At night, he would run to a hill with a view of the lake, and watch the stars and night fishing lights shine together; In the summer, he would take advantage of the rain to run to the sunny slope to pick a tender hazel mushroom; He and his colleagues also carved a record at the bottom of the mountain, using a few old loudspeakers to sing "karaoke" ...... on the mountainBut a year, two years, three years have passed, when he is as natural as breathing on every inch of land and every job on the station, and when he has become a father but every time he goes down the mountain, he has a slightly unfamiliar look at his son, he also becomes confused.
Wang Ningzhang is inspecting the operation of the observation facility Photo provided by the interviewee Do you want to go? When he had this question, he realized that he couldn't bear it. There is a mentor who takes him to disassemble the circuit diagram bit by bit, there are friends who encourage each other, there is the equipment he installs and debugs by himself, and there is a heavy responsibility he bears: the continuous and high-quality observation data provided by the Waliguan background station has drawn the famous "Wariguan curve" in the international meteorological community, which has become an important basis for proving global climate change and supporting the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Photo courtesy of Wang Ningzhang at work and he is one of the "gatekeepers" of data. Now, Wang Ningzhang still feels that the work on the station is not "interesting", but he will still be a little proud when he talks about this achievement: "Sometimes I find that something is wrong before the machine calls the police, and I eliminate the fault as soon as possible, without delaying the data transmission!" ”(c).Yang Hao is also a native of Qinghai, and his hometown is in Gonghe County, which is more than 40 kilometers away from Wariguan Mountain, which is also the direct radiation of the "ecological dividend" brought by the Waliguan Background Station. According to the requirements, there should be no large pollution sources within 50 kilometers around the atmospheric base, which means that there can be no major residential areas, industrial areas, major roads, airports and air routes near the Wariguan Mountain.
Photovoltaic sand control turns the former barren beach into an oasis in Gonghe County Photo courtesy of Gonghe County **Network "Will this affect the development of Gonghe County? This was a question that plagued many locals at the beginning of the planning of the Wari Guanbendi station. In fact, it is these "harsh" conditions that make Gonghe County more consciously put the protection of the ecological environment in the first place and embark on a road of sustainable development. Yang Hao, who was born in this green water and green mountains, was later admitted to the School of Atmospheric Sciences of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology. In a class on climate change in his sophomore year, he got to know his hometown and the famous Wari Guan Bundi Station from a different perspective for the first time. He was honored to be in it, and he wanted to do something to preserve it.
On January 24, observer Yang Hao was sorting out the greenhouse gas sampling bottle to be used that day.
After graduating in 2021, he decisively applied for the exam. "Every piece of our work, every piece of data and information plays an irreplaceable and important role in global research and decision-making on climate change. Even in the corner of Wariguan Mountain, he seems to be able to hear the voice of China echoing on the stage of world atmospheric monitoring and protection. (iv).from Huang Jianqing, to Wang Ningzhang, and then to Yang Hao; From the "60s", to the "80s", and then to the "90s"; From being assigned, to making independent choices, to taking the initiative to go; From spending the long years with the belief that "doing a line is to love a line", to truly understanding the meaning behind the work and taking the responsibility that should be shouldered, to taking every step to the ...... of "where the heart wants".
Group photo of the "New Year Walk to the Grassroots" reporting team with the staff on duty and interviewees at Wari Guanbendi Station Through the life course of three generations, we have not only seen the growth of a station, but also the exploration and efforts of the whole society to seek a harmonious coexistence between man and nature. Before bidding farewell to Wari Pass, the observers took the reporters to the sunny slope with the best scenery. "Karaoke" at an altitude of 3,816 meters Photo: Li Zishuo We sat on the slope and chatted for a while. Several gophers poke their brains at the entrance of the cave and make a "chirping" sound. In the distance, a goshawk skimmed over the 89-meter-high meteorological gradient observation tower. I don't know who started to hum softly first: "There the lake is always clear, the air is full of tranquility, the snow-white moon shines on the earth, hiding your deepest secret .......""At first there were only sporadic and gentle echoes, and then there were more and more voices and louder and louder. On the canopy of singing, half the sun and half the moon reverberate. It is a fiery belief and unrepentant perseverance. Produced by China Meteorological NewsAuthor:Ye Yihong, Ye Haiying, Guan Xiaojun, Lou HaipingEditLiberal Arts: Suqin WangAuditDuan Haoshu.