meteorology

Monthly measurement summaries from Lake Fryxell Meteorological Station (FRLM), McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica (1993-2022, ongoing)

Abstract: 

As part of the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research program, meteorological data are collected from various locations throughout the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. This data package contains monthly measurement summaries derived from 15-minute data generated by the Lake Fryxell Meteorological Station (FRLM), located in Taylor Valley. BOYM was established in 1993, during the 93/94 field season.

LTER Core Areas: 

Dataset ID: 

7210

Associated Personnel: 

891
892
362
96
95
97

Short name: 

FRLM_MONTHLY

Data sources: 

FRLM_AIRT_MONTHLY
FRLM_RADN_MONTHLY
FRLM_RH_MONTHLY
FRLM_SOILT_MONTHLY
FRLM_SURF_MONTHLY
FRLM_WSPD_MONTHLY

Methods: 

When the McMurdo Dry Valley LTER project began in December, 1993, a lake-ice meteorology station was already set up at Lake Fryxell. It was a 6 foot tower built by Rich Harnish in ~1989, but had not collected data for at least a year. Peter Doran, noting that the problem was power related (since the battery was under water and the voltage was less than 5), righted the station, and rebuilt it with new power supply, a new wind monitor, new CR10, new solar panel, and added a quantum sensor. The under water light sensors were not hooked up again nor was the barometric pressure sensor. The lake-ice station was operated from 7 December 1993 to 6 January 1994 (this lake-ice station is located in the same table as the Lake Fryxell shore station and is noted with the METLOCID=FRIM). At that time, it was decided that maintenance of the records at the site of the old Fryxell land station was more important than the ice station so the ice station was cannibalized to re-establish the Lake Fryxell shore station, (which had been destroyed by wind the previous winter (METLOCID=FRLM)). The station was based on a 6 foot tripod which set it apart from the other Taylor Valley stations, but a 10 foot tower was subsequently installed in year 2. The land station is located a few meters above the old site to avoid rising lake levels. On June 25, 2001 @ 0230 the station mast broke and blew over, breaking the wind monitor. Station was taken apart on November 16, 2001, with the sensors except wind temporally set up on what was left of the station. On November 27, 2001 the station was reconstructed and was made operational again. Mark all values from June to November as bad or questionable except the soil temperatures The station was set up to sample sensors every 30 seconds and send summary statistics (for example, averages and maximums) to solid-state storage modules every: 10 minutes from December 7, 1993 to January 6, 1994 and January 7, 1994 to January 12, 1994, three hours from January 6, 1994 to January 7, 1994 and January 12, 1994 to November 28, 1994, 20 minutes between November 28, 1994 and November 21, 1995, and 15 minutes thereafter. This has resulted in approximately 20 values being recorded for final storage in every output interval. Primary measurements made on Lake Fryxell meteorology station, instrumentation used, and time of initiation are shown in the following table: In 2007, it was realized that the RH error was still present in parts of the dataset. Hasan Basagic made the above corrections to the FRLM dataset for the date range 1/23/2004 11:15 - 12/21/2006 13:30 (102,058 records). In September, 2007 the information manager (Chris Gardner) removed all old RH data and re-inserted then newly calculated values and associated comments. The original files are archive in the 'submitted data' section of the mcmlter server.

Sampling and Averaging Intervals For Sampling frequency and Data Logger output and averaging intervals please visit:http://mcmlter.ltenet.edu/data/meteorology/methods/Interval_Dates.pdf

Additional information: 

Meteorological data are collected year-round at each of MCM LTER stations. Data are manually downloaded from the meteorological stations during the austral summer. Raw 15 minute data (Level 0) are processed and provided as Level 1 data on the MCM LTER website. Field notes, sensor information, processing procedures, QA/QC, and metadata are provided in the Meteorological Post Processing Documentation and Task Lists for each field season at the following address: https://mcm.lternet.edu/meteorological-task-lists

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - meteorology