Field Notes

Gilbert Tract: 2023-01-03 09:55:00 (DOY 3)
Author: Daphne Szutu
Others: Joe

Summary: Storm prep, high and turbid water, 7550 acting funny--swapped out with spare 7550

2023-01-03
Gilbert Tract

Joe and I arrived around 9:55 PST. It was cold and overcast and relatively still. We’ve had two big storms in the last week (Dec 26-27 and Dec 31), and another big one coming tomorrow (an ”atmospheric river bomb cyclone”). More storms forecast for this weekend and next week, too. Today’s visit was to batten down the hatches before tomorrow’s storm.

The water level was high and getting higher. The staff gauge read 93cm at 10:05 PST. Less than an hour later, the staff gauge was almost at 99cm and the first three lengths of boardwalk were underwater. There was azolla on top of the last boardwalk and on top of the 2x4s—almost reaching the small plastic extension box which connects the CRD, eosGP, and Campbell conductivity sensor back to the tower. The extension box looked dry inside but its bottom clasp is broken. The extension box is on a thin metal pole which is just sitting in an black plastic pipe. I raised the box temporarily by tying a zip tie around the metal pole to prevent it from sliding down the black plastic pipe. Eventually we’ll need a new extension box and to improve the boardwalks legs on the first three lengths of boardwalk. Looking at the tide forecast, the next daytime lower low tide will be in mid-February.

Joe tightened all the guy wires and removed the upper boardwalk. The solar scaffolding guy wires were loose but the tower ones were ok.

I downloaded met, cam, and USB GHG data. We don’t have any met or GHG data from 2022-12-31 23:30 to 2023-01-01 14:30. Not sure why; doesn’t look like a low power issue. eosGP CO2 was nan, a power cycle reset it enough.

The 7550 was dry inside and running but I had trouble ejecting the USB. After pressing the black Eject button, the LED would blink a few times and then remain on, instead of turning off as usual. I pulled the USB and put in a fresh, empty USB. The fresh USB took a while to mount, maybe about 1 min (usually mounts immediately). I reset the box and all seems ok. We swapped out the desiccant in the box.

I changed the eddy clock -15sec from 10:29:10 to 10:28:55. However, there was a consistent time sync error on the 7700 even after I rest the box. I also took a quick look at the raw data and saw that a lot of recent 7700 data was -9999. We decided to swap out the 7550 box so we could bring it back to the lab for further testing. I downloaded the full config file from the old box and uploaded it to the new box: sn AIU-1569 came off and sn AIU-1039 went on. I changed the pressure coefficients to match the new box, changed the clock from 11:16:31 to 10:56:55, and reset the box. I checked that the USB was logging, the 7700 was connected, and the GHG columns looked ok.

The 7500 read: 2717ppm CO2, 290000000+mmol/m3 H2O, 6.1C, 101.7kPa, 0SS --> 105 after cleaning
7500 clean with new box read: 394ppm CO2, 392mmol/m3 H2O, 7.4C, 101.7kPa, 99SS after cleaning
The 7700 read: 2.06ppm CH4, 30RSSI-->70 after cleaning
7700 clean with new box read: 2.03ppm CH4, 71RSSI

We got to Flo the ADCP around 11:05 PST. The channel water level was almost covering the top of the railing and still coming in. The water was latte brown and turbid. We downloaded Flo’s data, reset its clock, and restarted data collection before we disconnected.

We left around 11:30 PST. We plan to be back on Friday to check on things again.

Looking at the data back in the lab, the phenocam clock is a few hours off and needs to be reset next time.

3 photos found

20230103GT_HighTideIncoming.jpg ( 2023-01-03 11:22:10 ) Full size: 1440x1920
Latte colored storm water still incoming