Field Notes

Sherman Wetland: 2020-09-10 08:45:00 (DOY 254)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
Others: Daphne

Summary: Moderate air quality, Added globe thermometers, Serviced solar system at temp tower, water level coming up at temp tower maybe the main tower will get some water soon.

Sherman Wetland
2020-09-10

Daphne and I arrive in separate cars at 8:45 PDT. It was cool and overcast with a cold fresh smelling breeze from the west. Thereâ€™s smoke higher up as the sun was a red disk in the sky. AQI from Rio Vista, Antioch and Oakley were between 100 and 130 most of the day, but Berkeley was about 150 by 9am and closer to 250 when we returned in the evening. The water level was -8cm â€“ lowest Iâ€™ve seen it since construction. The tules and cattails are all brown but some weeds are taking advantage of the exposed ground.

The 7500 read: 417ppm CO2, 750mmol/m3 H2O, 16.8C, 101.6kPa, 98SS â€“ 103 after cleaning
The 7700 read: 1.95ppm CH4, 43RSSI â€“ 81 after cleaning.
The leading edges of the Licors were black with gunk at this and other Sherman Island sites. The wash reservoir was about 80% full â€“refilled.

The radiometers had some ash on them.

I installed the two globe thermometers I got from my friend Atsushi Maruyama in Japan. They are on the railing near the radiation boom with the HMP155 sn R0360206 and connected to a CR1000 sn 4190. The globe thermometers are three thermocouples in different size stainless steel spheres (~1mm â€“ 7mm). Combining the three measurements should give actual air temperature without the need of a solar shield or ventilation.

Daphne cleaned the solar panels.

We left at 9:15 for the temporary site

Temporary Tower
We arrived at 9:30. There was some water under the tower starting yesterday according to the well level data. The wetland is about 1/3 yellow here.

Daphne did the standard data collection while I checked on the solar system to diagnose recent power losses.

The 7500 read: 419ppm CO2, 775mmol/m3 H2O, 17.6C, 101.9kPa, 95SS â€“ 97 after cleaning
The 7700 read: 2.03ppm CH4, 32RSSI â€“ 73 after cleaning.
The leading edges were dark with gunk.

At the solar panels there were a bunch of wasps in the charge controller box which I evicted with a stick and left some moth balls for the ones I could not chase out. The screw terminals all seemed tight. I checked the water levels in the battery bank sn BB-SW_Temp1. These batteries are flooded but had a label that was mostly peeling off over screw cap openings that unscrewed best using a quarter (coin). I could see the plates in most of the cells and ended up adding about 1/2 gallon of DI water to each battery. I hope this fixes the problem.

We left at 10:15

4 photos found

20200910SW_GlobeThermometers.jpg ( 2020-09-10 00:00:00 ) Full size: 1920x1440
Installed globe thermometers for testing