CEOP_AP Tsukuba Reference Site UT-Mt Tsukuba Station

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Regional Hydroclimate Project:

CEOP_AP

Reference Site Name:

Tsukuba Station Name:

UT-Mt Tsukuba Other Stations at Reference Site:

Reference Site Representative:

Name:

Affiliation:

Associate Prof., University of Tsukuba

Address:

Tenno-dai, 1-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572, JAPAN

E-mail:

Telephone:

Fax:

Data Management Contact:

Name:

Affiliation:

Associate Prof., University of Tsukuba

Address:

Tenno-dai, 1-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572, JAPAN

E-mail:

Telephone:

Fax:

Associated Web Sites:

Station Location, Maps and Google Earth Files:

UT-Mt Tsukuba Local Station Map (click for full resolution):

Tsukuba Local Region Map (click for full resolution):

Tsukuba Regional Station Map (click for full resolution):

Google Earth:

Google Earth .kmz file of CEOP_AP Tsukuba Reference Site stations

Station Description:

General Description:

To promote science and technology and to become the center of advanced research and higher education based on its national institutes and university, a new science city (Tsukuba Science City) was established approximately 60 km northeast of Tokyo, in the 1970s (http://www.info-tsukuba.org/). The CEOP Tsukuba Reference Site (CTRS) project started in 2007 with the support of grants-in-aid for scientific research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (CEOP Tsukuba DB, No. 198052). The aim of this project is the archiving of the hydrometeorological data observed by the multiple institutes and university in Tsukuba Science City, and to link them to the domestic and international science community with a standard format within the framework of the CEOP project (http://www.ceop.net/). The following institutes and university are members of the CTRS project at present : Meteorological Research Institute (MRI), Terrestrial Environment Research Center (TERC) and Mt. Tsukuba Station (MtTSUKUBA) of the University of Tsukuba (UT). National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED), National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences (NIAES), and National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES).

Station Description:

Mt. Tsukuba is an isolated mountain with two peaks located in the eastern Kanto plain, about 70 km northeast of Tokyo. History of meteorological observation datas backs to the 1900's, when the Central Meteorological Observatory was constructed within the former Ministry of the Interior. The Japan Meteorological Agency continued modern automatic meteorological observations by AMeDAS till 2001. To continue the long history of observation, the University of Tsukuba established an automatic weather station (AWS) in Dec. 2005 at one of the peaks (Nantai-san, 871 m a.s.l.) under a research project entitled "Multi Monitoring of Meteorological and Hydrological Elements qt Mt. Tsukuba and Analysis for Atmosphere and Water Cycles" (Hayashi, 2006). The AWS not only measures the basic meteorological elements, such as temperture, humidity, wind, radiation, pressure, precipitation, but also monitors the CO2 concentration, weather parameters, pH in the precipitation, and captures the environmental scene around theAWS by digital camera. The platform is introduced by the web site (http://mtsukuba.suiri.tsukuba.ac.jp/) where real-time data are also shown. Among the measurements, basic surface meteorological data are made available to the international community via CEOP2 project.

Station Operator:

University of Tsukuba

Vegetation and Land Use:

Tsukuba Reference Site is situated on the Joso Plateau (20-30 m a.s.l.) consisting northeastern parts of Kanto plain. Land cover of the site is mainly consisted of two parts, one is the urbanized zone stretching north-south directions used for public facilities, residential areas, and commercial and business areas (so-called Tsukuba Science city), and the other parts are rural areas used for paddy field, dry field and orchard.

In August, 2005, the Tsukuba Express Railway started its business, and Tsukuba Science city is rapidly urbanizing. Two rivers are running in the north-east and south-west of the site, named Sakura-gawa and Kokai-gawa, and the paddy fields are mainly distributing along those rivers. Mt. Tsukuba (876 m a.s.l.) locates about 7 km north of the city center, mostly forested by beech, tall evergreen oak, and Japanese red pine tree. In the calm winter days, development of nighttime inversion layer over the Kanto plain causes thermal belt along the mountain slope, and it is utilized for local habitat and fruits plantation.Therefore, CEOP-Tsukuba reference site covers various of land-use with faster growing populated city representing land cover in the Kanto plain, central Japan.

Dominant land cover at the measurement location: No information.

Canopy height: No information.

Land cover within 50 m of site: No information.

Land cover within 500 m of site: No information.

Land cover within 12 km of site: No information.

Seasonal land cover changes: No information.

Major changes in land cover at site from October 2002 to December 2004: No information.

Slope at the site: No information.

Other notes: No information.

Soil Type and Characterization:

Surface soil type: No information.

Soil type in deeper layers: Underlying the surface soil are a loam layer (1.5-20 m; the Kanto Loam), a clay layer (2.5-9 m; the Joso clay), a sand layer (9-30 m), a fine sand layer (30-47.5 m), and a sand & gravel layer (47.3-55m) in descending order. Basement rocks in the area consist of granitic and metamorphic rocks, forming the Mt.Tsukuba. The water table is generally observed within the Kanto loam or the Joso clay.

Surface soil porosity: No information.

Soil porosity in deeper layers: No information.

Soil infiltration rate: No information.

Bulk Dry Density: No information.

Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity: No information.

The Soil Reference Group(s) (from World Reference Base for Soil Resources): No information.

Climate:

No information.

CEOP Parameters Measured and Instrumentation:

SURFACE METEOROLOGY AND RADIATION INSTRUMENTATION AND DESCRIPTION:

Station pressure measured at 1.45m height; no instrumentation information
Air Temperature measured at 1.5 m height; no instrumentation information
Dew point - presumably derived at 1.5 m height
Relative humidity measured at 1.5 m height; no instrumentation information
Specific humidity presumably derived at 1.5 m height
Wind speed measured at 15 m height; no instrumentation information
Wind direction measured at 15 m height; no instrumentation information
U wind component presumably derived at 15 m height
V wind component presumably derived at 15 m height
Precipitation - measured at 1.1 m height; no instrumentation information
Snow depth - Not measured.
Incoming shortwave radiation - measured at 13.4 m height; no instrumentation information
Outgoing shortwave radiation - Not Measured
Incoming longwave radiation - Not Measured
Outgoing longwave radiation - Not Measured
Net radiation presumably derived
Skin temperature - measured at 2.4 m height; no instrumentation information
Incoming Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) - Not Measured
Outgoing Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) - Not Measured

METEOROLOGICAL TOWER INSTRUMENTATION AND DESCRIPTION:

No tower data available.

FLUX INSTRUMENTATION AND DESCRIPTION:

No flux data available.

SOIL INSTRUMENTATION AND DESCRIPTION:

No soil data available.

RADIOSONDE INSTRUMENTATION AND DESCRIPTION:

No radiosonde measurements available.

OTHER INSTRUMENTATION AND DESCRIPTION:

Weather report - Vaisala PWD12 at 1.5 m height
Field images - Sony Camera (6 times per hour)

Site References

Tsukuba Web Site

Literature:

Ueno et al. (2008); Establishment of CEOP Tsukuba Reference site, Tsukuba Geoenvironmental Sciences, vol. 4, 17-20..

Presentations:

September 2007 - Bali, Indonesia

Tsuskuba

March 2007 - Washington, DC, USA

Tsukuba Poster

Data Sets and Documentation: