This document describes the operation and measurements of the Integrated Surface Flux Facility (ISFF) during the Cumulus Photogrammetric, In-Situ and Doppler Observations field experiment (CuPIDO) - the 1 Jul - 31 Aug 2006. If you reached this page from a search engine, click here to see the full report, with frames.
See a more detailed experimental description here.
CuPIDO Links
NCAR EOL ISF ISFF Site Survey Information:
| Sept-05 | Photos | Notes: Militzer (text) | Notes: Horst (text) |
| Jan-06 | Photos | Notes: Poulos (Word) | |
| Photos | Site Photos | Desert Life&Landscape | AirSpaceMuseum |
A computer-readable field logbook of comments by NCAR and other personnel is available in raw text format.
See schedule and logistics here.
Directions to the 10 tower sites with map and photos (MSWord)
A Map of all ISFF PAM and ISFF tower site locations.
Click on the site number to get a more specific description of a given site. Site order by elevation is: 7, 8, 9, 10, 4, 3, 5, 1, 2, 6.
| Station # |
Station ID and Name | Latitude (deg N) |
Longitude (deg W) |
Elevation m (feet) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | N - North - Campo Bonito | 32° 34.303' | 110° 42.401' | 1305 (4362) |
| 2 | NE - Northeast - Stratton Canyon | 32° 30.243' | 110° 40.772' | 1365 (4560) |
| 3 | ENE - East Northeast - Davis Mesa | 32° 27.855' | 110° 37.400' | 1234 (4120) |
| 4 | E - East - Lone Hill | 32° 24.716' | 110° 35.517' | 1141 (3812) |
| 5 | SSE - South-southeast - Bellota Ranch | 32° 18.200' | 110° 36.709' | 1270 (4244) |
| 6 | S - South - Bug Springs | 32° 20.440' | 110° 42.897' | 1500 (5011) |
| 7 | SW - Southwest - Pusch Ridge, Archery site | 32° 21.328' | 110° 57.526' | 840 (2805) |
| 8 | W - West - Catalina | 32° 25.928' | 110° 55.331' | 853 (2852) |
| 9 | WNW - West Northwest - Golder Ranch | 32° 28.711' | 110° 53.026' | 961 (3210) |
| 10 | NNW - North Northwest - Rancho Solano | 32° 33.661' | 110° 51.172' | 1044 (3490) |
A total of 128 meteorological variables will be recorded by the ISFF team on behalf of CuPIDO's scientific goals. Each of the 10 tower sites is 10 m in height and they are outfitted as follows:
This is the 2nd use of the Viper-based PC104 data systems (NIDAS, from which the HIAPER data system is derived), running the new data acquisition code for primary data acquisition. This is the first deployment of NIDS with the new GOES satellite transmit channel, 5 minute average data creation and near-real-time transmission. Online data plots will be available (dependent on GOES transmissions) and updated in ~30 minute increments. This is the first time 10 towers have been deployed with the NIDAS data acquisition system.
All data coming from sensors that were on the main mast will be removed from the NetCDF files while the mast was down or in the case of site 5, when there was an individual on the tower.
The sonic anemometers generally worked properly. Tilt corrections were applied to stations 2, 3, and 10, and station 5 was left untouched.
There were the usual bad values expected when rain affected the sensor, which is characterized when a drop of rain covers one of the 0.5 cm diameter transducers. Although no data was removed from the NetCDF files for the rain cases, very good indicators of quality of the data during these rain events can be viewed by plotting either uflag.7m, vflag.7m, wflag.7m, and tcflag.7m, which are fractions of the points that are detected as spikes. Also, one can plot diag.7m, which indicates the sonic detected a problem. Click on this link: sonic manual and look at pages 11 & 12 for a more detailed description. Lastly, one can plot samples.sonic, which indicates the amount of samples recorded in a 30 minute period, which should be 18,000 points. Anything less may indicate a problem associated with rain.
Please use the "Height.Site" link to view the tilt plots
| Height.Site | Boom Angle | Actual Height (m) | Lean (deg) | Lean Azimuth (deg) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7m.ne | 135° | 7.0 | 2.9 | -179.3 |
| 7m.ene | 180° | 7.0 | 1.7 | -48.3 |
| 7m.sse | 180° | 7.0 | 0.2 | -34.5 |
| 7m.nnw | 210° | 7.0 | 2.0 | -78.3 |
All sonics will report at 60sps to minimize the influence of pulse-sequence delay errors on the 20Hz fluxes.
The krypton hygrometers generally worked properly. Any spikes in the data associated with cleaning the sensor will be removed from the NetCDF files. During rain events, the sensor voltage was too low to be reliable, so those data will be removed from the NetCDF files too. There are also a few obvious outlying points that will be removed, reasoning for those outliers has not been established.
Values of sensible and latent heat flux derived from the measured sonic w, virtual temperature, and krypton hygrometer will be added to the NetCDF files.
The open path licor generally worked properly other than expected bad values during rain events. Removing co2 data when the krypton hygrometer had a voltage reading at or below 0.01V removed the vast majority of the rain cases. One other unknown outlier was removed too. We have yet to implement a Webb correction to remove humidity artifacts.
The prop-vane anemometers generally worked properly. There was in issue at station 3, where the starting threshold was too high because of a problem with a tight bearing. The issue seemed to have surfaced in mid July and got progressively worse until the sensor was replaced at 16:25 MST on August 9, 2006. Because of that problem, the user should be cautious in using low windspeed values from the prop-vane anemometer during that period. One option is to use the values coming from the sonic anemometer at station 3. There are still some outstanding issues concerning boom angles, so the quality control process is not yet complete.
The sensor generally worked properly. There were two instances where the sensor was pegged to full scale possibly because the A/D got stuck somehow, so that data will be removed from the NetCDF files. They occured during the following periods:
There were also a few instances (~13 total for all 10 towers) when rain infiltration, tower maintenance periods, or unknown reasons caused unrealistic values in the data, those too will be removed from the NetCDF files.
Note: The surface temperature sensor at Station 2 was aimed away from a large mesquite bush to a more representative spot on the ground at ~15:45 on July 14.
Longwave radiation values calculated from the measured Rpile, Tcase, and Tdome values will be added to the NetCDF files. (Note that the Kipp\&Zonen pyrgeometers do not have Tdome sensors.)
The wind speed correction recommended by Campbell Scientific for the net radiometers will be implemented.
The sensors generally worked properly. At station 5, a data glitch appearing from approximately June 27 - July 2 caused one unrealistic point every three hours, those points will be removed from the NetCDF files.
At station 10, after the first significant rainfall event on July 26th overnight, the soil temperature signal began to gradually attenuate and level off for the rest of the project. Here is a link to a plot at station 10: Tsoil vs. T . We presume this was caused by abundant grass growth having an insulating effect on the area around the soil temperature sensor. The grass didn't allow direct sunlight (shortwave radiation) to conduct effectively into the soil to warm it up during the day and didn't allow nighttime diffuse radiation (longwave radiation) to effectively exit the soil and cool it down at night in a "greenhouse" type effect. Please follow the links below for examples of before and after pictures illustrating the abundant grass growth after the first significant rainfall.
Soil Heat Flux:
The sensors generally worked properly. There were a few instances (~7 total from 4 flux towers) when unknown reasons caused an unrealistic spike in the data, those will be removed from the NetCDF files. At station 5, a data glitch appearing from approximately June 27 - July 2 caused one unrealistic point every three hours, those points will be removed from the NetCDF files. At station 3 and 10, data glitches occuring at nighttime because of problems with the wireless Xbee dropping characters is in the process of being quality controlled. The approximate time when these data glitches occurred are as follows:
Soil Moisture:
The sensors generally worked properly. All four sensors are currently being calibrated to soil specific conditions to reduce any errors associated with associated soil properties. There were a few instances(~3 total from 4 flux towers) when unknown reasons caused an unrealistic spike in the data, those will be removed from the NetCDF files. At station 5, a data glitch appearing from approximately June 27 - July 2 caused one unrealistic point every three hours, those points will be removed from the NetCDF files.
Soil Thermal Properties (TP01):
The sensor worked properly.
Values for the soil heat capacity, thermal diffusivity, and thermal conductivity derived from the raw TP01 readings will be added to the NetCDF files.
| Station | GOES Id | Transmission Offset (sec) |
Transmission Length (sec) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3640C550 | 165 | 5 |
| 2 | 3640D626 | 30 | 16 |
| 3 | 364102B4 | 60 | 16 |
| 4 | 3641372E | 90 | 5 |
| 5 | 36417424 | 120 | 18 |
| 6 | 3641A24C | 150 | 5 |
| 7 | 3641B13A | 180 | 5 |
| 8 | 3641D4DC | 210 | 5 |
| 9 | 3641E146 | 240 | 5 |
| 10 | 3641F230 | 270 | 16 |
The tables display mean, deviation, number of missing values, and number of clipped values for each variable, from 0:00-6:00, 6-12:00, 12-18:00 and 18-24:00 each day.
The 5 minute statistics for most variables are shown on time-series plots.
|
|
Site location map - GoogleEarth view (jpg) |
Sun angle plot for Tucson |
Sun shadow plot for Tucson |
|
7m.ne |
7m.ene |
7m.sse |
7m.nnw |
(click on this link for an example plot) |
|
Tsoil vs. T |
before significant rainfall (with approximate location of sensor) |
after significant rainfall (with approximate location of sensor) |
