Field Notes

Mayberry: 2024-01-30 11:30:00 (DOY 30)
Author: Daphne Szutu
Others: Robert, Kyle

Summary: Warm day, storm prep, + Kyle, installed VWC sensors in wetland to measure conductivity, removed porewater sippers for clean-up

2024-01-30
Mayberry

Robert and I met Kyle at the Sherman gate at 11:30 PST. Kyle is joining us for this site to install VWC sensors and to remove the porewater sippers. I think we saw Jason R. from UCD (wildlife biodiversity scientist also working at Dutch) leaving through the gate right as we arrived. Kyle left her car just inside the gate and rode with us in our 4WD truck. The mounds of mallows on the interior levee roads are tall enough to brush against the bottom of our truck.

It was unseasonably warm and sunny with hazy clouds, the calm before storms arrive tomorrow and Sunday. Tomorrow's forecast predicts a little rain (2-3cm) but a whole lotta wind up to 10 m/s (20+ mph).

At the wetland, the water level is about the same and the staff gauge read 15cm.

Kyle got into the waders and installed the two VWC sensors. These sensors are measuring electrical conductivity, so we are testing using them to measure a proxy for porewater salinity. The sensors are installed in areas where there’s currently at least 10cm of water above the surface and the soil is squishy. Both sensors are installed diagonally with the top of the white body about 5cm below the muck surface. Sn 17130 (SDI-12 addr = 0) was installed in the channel, about 3m NE of the tower. Sn 17131 (SDI-12 addr = 1) was installed in a tule patch, about 50cm south of the tower staff gauge. I wired them to SW12 and C5 (shared with the dfPAR CR10x). I had originally wired it to C7 (shared with the HYDROS21 CTD), but that had the same SDI-12 address as one of the soil moisture sensors, so there was a conflict. I updated the CR1000 code by copying over the relevant datalogger code from an old version of the HS_met code (where these sensors were installed in the past). I checked that all the real-time met code looked reasonable. The electrical conductivity from the VWC sensors was 2.3 dS/m and 2.8 dS/m (have to double-check the units).

Kyle tried to sample some of the porewater sippers but didn’t get enough to sample, so she and Robert worked on removing the sippers. They measured the depth of each sipper.
Blue: 40cm
Blank (no colored tape): 12cm
Red tape at top, green on bottom: 19cm
Green tape at top, green on bottom: 48cm
Yellow: 22cm

I downloaded met, cam, and USB GHG. The dfPAR data was intermittent in the first half of the month, but seems ok now. I downloaded the miniDOT data and swapped the miniDOT desiccant. The cattails are continuing to encroach into the channel and the water sensors will eventually be measuring vegetated water instead of open water. Robert cleaned flux and rad sensors. The wash reservoir was 2/3 full; we refilled it.

In preparation for the incoming storm, Robert checked that the turnbuckles were secure and we moved the upper boardwalk down to a lower rung on the scaffolding.

The 7500 read: 452ppm CO2, 602mmol/m3 H2O, 20.1C, 100.9kPa, 97SS—102 after cleaning
The 7700 read: 2.47ppm CH4, 45RSSI – 69 after cleaning

We left at 12:40 PST. Kyle went home and Robert and I continued onto Twitchell.

0 photos found

11 sets found

7 MB_flux graphs found