Argonne Instruments at WFIP3: Day 2 - Installation Begins!#
Today was the first day of real installation work! We started with a quick breakfast at the hotel, then drove to the field site at sunrise (shown below).
Installing the Tower#
We started by installing the meteorology tower, which includes sensors that measure wind speed, wind direction, temperature, precipitation, and moisture. The tower extends to over 10 meters (over 32 feet), and looks similar to a cellular communication tower! Joe O’Brien (oneo f my colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory) worked together to assemble the tower, connect the three main sections, and attach instruments! While we did not finish the complete setup of the tower today, we made great progress and will wrap up the installation tomorrow morning.
My AGU Talk#
I presented an oral presentation remotely for the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting, which took place in San Francisco, California. Fortunately there was a remote option, which enabled me to present remotely at the field site in Nantucket! I presented on “Open Urban Science Instrument Cookbooks”, highlighting the work we have done with the Community Research on Urban Climate Science (CROCUS) project. The internet only cut out once during the session - and I was still able to engage in the discussion about open science for the geoscience community!
The Sodar#
The meteorological tower was not the only set of instruments we deployed/are deploying at Nantucket. The other core instrument we are responsible for is the Sonic Detection and Ranging Instrument (SODAR). The SODAR provides a vertical profile of wind speed, direction, and temperature up to several hundred meters above the surface! This enables measurements far above what a tower could measure, a benefit common to remote sensing instruments like this. The SODAR sends an audible “chirp” vertically, and measures the sound that returns back to the instrument, which can be converted to temperature and wind estimates. For this instrument, we leveled the wooden palette, connected the side panels, and anchored the instrument to the ground.
Dinner (and Drinks)#
We finished the day by stopping at a local brewery, Cisco Brewing Company. They had a great beer selection and a taco truck. Dinner also came with a show - with a local folk band performing as we finished our taco bowls and burritos. It was a relaxing way to finish the day, and we traveled back to the hotel after closing out. As mentioned earlier, we need to finish a few more tasks at the site tomorrow (mainly related to the tower), then we travel to Martha’s Vineyard tomorrow evening, where we plan to set up an instrument at our second field site.
