NCAR ISFF Met Station at RICO
RICO Station viewed from the North
NEW
Final QC'd dataset is available.
Introduction
This document describes the operation and measurements of the
Integrated Surface Flux Facility (ISFF) meteorological station during RICO.
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RICO Links
Site Description
The GPS coordinates for the site are 17 deg 33.047' N, 61 deg 44.259' W
(from the RICO Project Information book).
Schedule
- 3 Dec 2004
- Data collection starts
- 25 Jan 2005
- Data collection ends
Instrumentation
The instrumentation consists of:
Sensor Notes
No major sensor problems occurred during this project.
Propeller-Vanes
No problems occurred. The mast was down on both Dec 30 and 31 to move
communications antennae. These data have been removed.
T/RH
The first 5 hours of data collected on Dec 3 were from a bad sensor. The rest of
the data were okay. The Gortex filter was replaced approximately weekly (and
had some salt build-up). We don't think this should affect the data. The fan
also was inspected (at least by ear) almost daily and was always working. The
fan was removed from its housing a few times during the project and moisture and
crystallized salt was found on the housing, but the blade appeared to be
unaffected.
Derived values of specific humidity have been added to the data files.
Barometer
No problems occurred. The pressure signal is dominated by a semidurnal
oscillation associated with a solar "tide", typical of tropical conditions
(see example).
Radiometers
Both the pyranometer and pyrgeometer behaved properly throughout the program.
However, persistent winds built up a thin coating of salt spray on the windward
(east) side. For this reason, both radiometers were cleaned every day (usually
in the morning). Because cloud-free skies almost never happened, it is quite
difficult to estimate the error caused by this spray, but it could actually
enhance the measured radiation due to increased specular reflections. With the
frequent cleanings, we have ignored this error.
Two unusual characteristics in the short-wave data are short-duration spikes,
due to shadowing by small (~100m) quickly-moving (15m/s) clouds, and enhancement
of radiation above the cosine-weighted attenuated solar constant at the edges
of clouds due to direct sunlight collected by the optically-thin clouds. Examples
of this are 1 day,
a few clouds.
Values of long-wave radiation derived simply as: R_pile + sigma T_case^4 have
been added to the data files. This should be sufficient since Kipp-and-Zonen
pyrgeometers were used.
Rain Gauge
This operated normally as far as we can tell. Total accumulation was only 40mm,
which seems somewhat low and may be due to high winds affecting the collection
efficiency. (Though this usually is not a problem for liquid precipitation.)
A few test tips on Dec 4 and Dec 29 have been removed from the data set.
Photographs
Photos of the station and environment around Spanish Point are
here.
Here are Ned Chamberlain's,
Mike Susedik's,
and Steve Oncley's tourist photos.
Here are unedited STATION PANORMAS taken from on top of
the tripod and rotating around the mast:
Set-1
Set-2
Set-3
A computer-readable field logbook
of comments by NCAR and other personnel is available in read-only
html form.
Click on the above link to plots of 5 minute statistics of the
sampled variables.
Data Download
The NCAR data are available for download in the following forms:
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This page was prepared by
Gordon Maclean and
NCAR Research Technology Facility