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EAGLE - For the past 40 years or so, John Borg has stepped out of his home in Eagle at about seven in the morning to take the temperature. He's taken it in the summer heat, when it was minus 72 degrees in winter, he even took it when floods lapped his front lawn last spring. Whatever the conditions, Borg took note of the temperature. For Borg, it's a public service.

"It's important to have continuity of temperature going back as we can and see what minor trends are taking place," Borg said.

Borg is one of 230 volunteers throughout Alaska who take the temperature every day for the National Weather Service as part of the Cooperative Weather Observer Program. It's a program that goes back to 1776, when Thomas Jefferson began to recruit volunteers in Virginia to start keeping record of weather.

In Alaska, the observers have reported temperatures for about 50 years. There are only 49 weather stations here; the Weather Service relies on volunteers such as Borg, who use a simple thermometer to take the temperature and a bucket to measure precipitation, to tell them what is happening with the climate in much of the state.

"In the U.S. and Alaska, this has been the backbone of the system for measuring the climate for a long time," said Gary Hufford, regional scientist for the National Weather Service Alaska region.

But all that may change in the next five years as the Weather Service introduces a new way to measure the weather.

The organization has begun installing Climate Reference Network stations, called CRNs, throughout the state. CRNs are self-contained, unmanned weather stations that will record temperature and precipitation and transmit that information by satellite to NOAA offices. Eventually, the stations will also measure soil temperature and moisture.

The Weather Service is partnering with the National Park Service on the project, which is installing about 40 stations in Alaska's parks.

To start, stations will be placed where they can tap into energy from towns and villages. They need about as much energy as a 60-watt light bulb but some locations that are particularly remote, such as the Brooks Range, will have to wait until the stations can be powered by wind and solar power.

In addition to weather and power, developers are also figuring out how to counter another force of nature: wildlife.

"One big problem was that polar bears love to rub up against the stations and bend the wires and so forth," Hufford said.

The goal is to provide at least a 50-year record of the changes in the state's climate. Though climate change is happening faster in the Arctic than elsewhere, Hufford said, Alaska lags far behind the other states in setting up automated stations, mostly because of spotty funding for the project.

Like many projects, it is simply more expensive in Alaska. Each CRN station costs $50,000 to $70,000 to install and maintain, depending on how remote the location is. In the Lower 48, the stations cost $25,000 to $30,000.

Hufford said he anticipates installing four or five each year starting in October, with 32 altogether.

"We really need to get a handle on what exactly climate change is doing and how it will go on so we can provide information that decision-makers need, whether that's a husband and wife deciding what to do in their backyard, a utility company, or the government," Hufford said.

As for the 230 volunteers like Borg, 200 will continue taking the temperature in their backyards across the state, but that system too is due to be modernized with new, computer-run stations. That should suit Borg just fine.

"I win a lot of arguments about the weather, because I've got the records," Borg said.