Class procedures were designed to enhance the Instruments course. Each student in the Instruments course came up with project ideas and then students were grouped by like topic. Students completed a site analysis, carried out their project and analyzed the data as part of the DOW Project Report that was due near the end of the semester. Since this was an Instruments course and not a Radar Meteorology course, special attention was given the instrument characteristics and issues that arise during field work.
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James Cundiff and John Adams helping Paul Robinson set up the DOW.
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Not all of the students in the Instruments course had taken the Radar Meteorology course, so the first step was to present students with the background they needed to understand how radar works and how to interpret the data. Most of this was covered during lecture before the DOW arrived. Students were also given reading assignments on radar data interpretation, especially clear-air returns. West-central Illinois was in a long dry period when the DOW arrived in late September, so we focused on predominately clear-air projects. This is fortunate because it only rained twice during the entire time the DOW was at WIU, once near the beginning of the DOW visit and once near the end.
Before the DOW arrived, students were asked to come up with field project ideas. Each student came up with clear-air and precipitation situation project ideas. Each student turned in a paragraph describing their project idea and how the DOW was suitable for observing the situation. Students were then put into groups of 2-3 based on their clear-air project ideas. Some of these project ideas included: modification of wind by a wind farm, detection and tracking of power plant steam/heat, detection of morning fog over a lake, anomalous propagation caused by a morning inversion, influence of the Mississippi River on radar returns, tracking harvest debris downwind of a soybean field being harvested, detection of the urban heat island effect, and the effect of a city-scape on the ambient wind pattern. These ideas were grouped into 6 main topics and a total of 8 groups (two groups each for wind farms and power plant smoke stacks.) Each student in the group focused on a particular aspect of the main topic. For example, one group of three students examined three different aspects of an early-morning visit to Spring Lake: (1) fog over the lake, (2) fog over the land surrounding the lake and (3) morning inversion effects.
Before the DOW arrived at WIU, student groups completed a site analysis (using GoogleEarth) to determine the optimal location for their deployment. (See Appendix A: DOW Field Report Writing Guide, Project Planning and Site Selection/Study Area Description sections) The site analysis document they turned in included GoogleEarth images, elevation maps and target information. Instructor feedback was given on the site analysis and students revised their analysis to include more detail and a contingency plan if the original site was not ideal.
Once the DOW arrived at WIU, students were scheduled for training on operation and data collection. All of the students in the Instruments course received training. When most of the students had been trained to use the DOW they met with the DOW technicians, Paul Robinson and Ab Pfeifer, during one class period to talk about their project ideas and practical considerations. Some of the topics we discussed were scanning strategy suggestions, site selection issues students may not have considered, and any additional issues students should be aware of for each project. Paul Robinson was incredibly helpful in giving pre-project feedback and offered some great suggestions during deployments. I know CSWR does not usually send Paul on educational deployments, but having Paul’s expertise made the DOW visit much more educational than it would have been otherwise!
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Soybean harvest project pictures.
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Each deployment was given a maximum of five hours for completion, including travel time. It turned out that five hours was often not quite enough. Students learned that it is not as simple as driving to a location, collecting data, and then coming home. Sometimes getting to the deployment site was an adventure due to the height of the DOW. It takes time to get set up once we arrive at the deployment site. Sometimes the deployment site was not ideal so we needed to move to a better site. The equipment didn’t always work correctly so the problem had to be fixed before data collection could resume. Once we got the first look at the data, the scanning strategy might need to be changed or the original project idea might need to change. These are all things I wanted my students to experience first-hand so that they recognize that flexibility in the field is essential.
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Thunderstorm observations.
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While in the field students kept a journal documenting scan information, site details, etc. Students were told to write down anything that might be significant. Students were also told to document the site by taking pictures to create a 360º panorama. The PI, Redina Herman, was present at almost every deployment to help students determine what they were observing and what should be documented. The following projects were carried out:
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| Site selection and operations at the Bishop Hill Wind farm. |
There were two issues that were common among the student projects. The first issue is that the phenomenon being investigated was often too close to the ground. Side lobes were a real issue during clear-air observations of near-ground targets. (This problem led to one of the on-going projects being conducted by students. John Adams and James Cundiff are diagnosing side lobe characteristics using radar imagery, high resolution LIDAR elevation data, and ArcGIS line-of-site analysis tools.) Surprisingly, none of the students proposed projects having to do with clouds. The second issue is that power lines in rural Illinois were very common and incredibly hard to detect on GoogleEarth images during the site selection stage of the project. To alleviate this problem, students had one or two back-up sites picked out before the deployment. When these problems occurred, students had two choices: (1) modify the original project idea to examine something else at the deployment site or (2) make the most of it and see what could discovered from the data collected. This led to some interesting observations and insights.
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| Students making observations near Galesburg, IL |
The data analysis portion of the project was completed using SOLO3. Students learned to navigate in the LINUX environment to extract their files to the appropriate location, then used SOLO3 to visualize the data (see Appendix B). Students documented ground clutter on the radar images using the photographs they had taken at the site to connect objects in the photographs to locations on the radar image.
Once all of the student projects were complete, students had to write up their results following the DOW Field Report Writing Guide in Appendix A. Since the DOW was used for an Instruments class, students focused on instrument issues such as site selection, operation of the DOW and any issues that arose, ground clutter diagnosis, and data characteristics.
Finally, student completed a survey documenting who did what in the project. This was designed to hold students accountable for their role in the project. It was also designed to get feedback on operating the DOW and suggestions for future use of the DOW (see Appendix C).
Overall, the DOW field projects were a huge success. Students learned how to plan and carry out a field project using the DOW. They then used SOLO3 to visualize their data and interpret it. The DOW is a large instrument with moving parts, so students also learned that an instrument does not always work like it is supposed to work. The DOW brought aspects to the Instruments class that would have been impossible otherwise.
Dow Field Report Writing Guide
For your DOW project report, you are going to document your DOW experience! Most of the report’s length will probably be pictures and images rather than text. Your DOW project report should answer the following questions:
Project Planning
Site Selection/Study Area Description
DOW in Action
Ground Clutter Diagnosis
Data Description
Data Analysis
LINUX and SOLO3 Instructions
Getting started with LINUX:
Open a terminal window
Explore some commands and find your files
Copy your files to your directory
Unzip your files
Run Solo3
To save your data images, use Alt-Print Screen to print the active screen. This will create a .png file that you can import into your DOW Field Report.
Post-project Review
Your name: _______________________
Partner 1 name: _______________________
Partner 2 name: ________________________
Indicate who completed each of the following tasks by putting an X in the appropriate box(es). You may check more than one person for each task.
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Partner 1 |
Partner 2 |
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Discussed ideas for a DOW project and site locations with the group |
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Helped Paul or Ab navigate to the deployment site |
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Collected data using the DOW |
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Documented the site(s) with the camera |
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Took notes about the DOW operations DURING the deployment |
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Came up with a scanning strategy for the DOW deployment |
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Downloaded and unzipped sweep files |
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Ran or helped run SOLO3 |
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Interpreted DOW images, including ground clutter and interesting features |
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Wrote part(s) of the report |
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Inserted figures/images and provided figure/image caption information |
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Determined how many DOW files were created and how big the data set was |
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Answer the following questions:
1. Which parts of the report did YOU write? Be specific.
2. Which parts of the report did you provide data/input for? Be specific.
3. List any additional tasks that you completed for the DOW project.
