Installation of below ground instrumentation and grounding plates adjacent to Betasso tower (Nate Rock and Rory Cowie)

Completed tower with instruments

View of data logger box at base of tower

 

Meteorology

Three weather stations are currently established along an elevational transect ranging from the top of the Betasso catchment at 1960 meters to the outlet of Green Lake 4 at 3740 meters. The sites are designed to continuously record climate conditions in three different ecological and geomorphological zones. Eventually, all sites will be monitored using 10 meter tall towers supporting a variety of instruments to collect weather and energy balance data. Our most complete station to date is at the Betasso site where the following data is collected: air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, barometric pressure, incoming short wave radiation, net radiation, and precipitation. Air temperature, relative humidity, wind sensors are placed at both 2m and 10m heights above ground surface while the radiation sensors are placed at 5m height.

Adjacent to each complete tower is an array of buried sensors capable of monitoring soil heat flux, moisture content, and temperature at varying depths below the ground surface. These arrays are designed to measure the energy and hydrologic exchange between the near surface environment and the atmosphere. A tipping bucket rain gauge and/or a load sensing rain collector are collocated to each tower and measure precipitation volume and intensity.  Power is supplied to each station by either wet lead acid, or absorbed glass mat 12 volt DC batteries augmented by solar panels or line power. 

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Tower and ground instruments are wired to Campbell Scientific measurement and control data loggers programmed to sample every 10 second s and to store data to internal memory every 10 minutes. Data storage includes average values along with minimum and maximum values time stamped for precise occurrence within each 10 minute interval. Stored data is then regularly relayed via a 900mhz radio to a secure internet IP address and into the project computer server. Once downloaded the data is interrogated for erroneous readings and malfunctioning sensors. Upon completion of the quality assurance and quality control measures data is sent to the data base manager for final archival and distribution via the project website

 

Written by Rory Cowie, Zan Frederick