Field Notes

Bouldin Corn: 2023-03-02 11:00:00 (DOY 61)
Author: Daphne Szutu
Others: Kyle

Summary: Regular data collection/cleaning, field draining slowly, 7550 dead--removed, precip bucket funnel blown off--fixed

2023-03-02
Bouldin Corn

Kyle and I arrived around 11:00 PST. It was cool but mostly sunny with not much of a breeze, so it didn’t feel too cold. We had about 5cm of rain last week, with more rain expected late next week.

The water in the field is going down slowly—it’s musy under the tower but there’s no standing water under the tower. Most of the field is still inundated. The Silver Lab has a few chambers out in the field, and a few on dry soil by their blue boxes.

It’s been windy recently: the upper boardwalk had been blown from the west to the east edge of the scaffolding. We also found the precip funnel on the edge of the field, partly underwater. Kyle cleaned it and reinstalled it on the bucket, secured with the black rubber band. We couldn’t find the screen, so we’ll need to replace it or make a new one for next time. The funnel had a slight dent on the lower section that slips over the bucket; Kyle used a wrench to reshape it enough to fit over the bucket. The funnel also has screw holes for set screws, but we did not see any screws. I’m not sure if they fell off or if we installed it without screws.

The 7550 seems to be dead. There was USB GHG data until 2022-02-21, and then a short blip on 2022-02-28. I confirmed it was receiving 24V of power, but no LEDS were on. We removed 7550 sn AIU-1866 to bring back to the lab for further testing. I unhooked all of the wires from the bottom of the 7550 and tied them to the scaffolding to point down. I also unwired the two yellow power wires from the screw terminal in the met box, but I forgot to unwire the sonic power. So the sonic cable that usually connects to the bottom of the 7550 still has power on it.

I unplugged power from the whole tower temporarily while I re-stripped the power wires going into the met box. There was a small nick in the red cable, but the black cable was fine. I don’t think this should’ve affected the 7550. I plugged power back in after the fix and downloaded data.

I downloaded met, cam, USB GHG, PA, and IRT data. There's a power blip from 2023-02-28 20:00 to 2023-03-01 14:00. There's also about 2 days of PA data missing, 2023-02-24 to 2023-02-26. Maybe a sensor blip? The timing of the missing data doesn't correlate with the 7550 dying or with the power blip.

I meant to install a FD chamber today, but I forgot the cable in the lab. Next time.

Kyle cleaned the radiometers. No point in cleaning flux sensors if they’re not recording data. No live GHG data today since I couldn’t connect to the 7550. The reservoir was 2/3 full; we refilled it.

We left at 12:05 PST. It was quite sloppy on the dirt onramp by the overpass. We made it through by speeding over the mud pits in our large truck.

3 photos found

bouldincorn_2023_03_03_104505.jpg ( 2023-03-03 18:46:06 ) Full size: 1296x960
Charlotte setting up chambers on flooded field