Travelers should be ready to wait at the train stations.
Trains to Delhi can also be late. The Gomti Express in particular.
Aircraft Possible Week of May 25th
The aircraft is in final preparations. The PASS-1 instrument should be installed on Monday.
Flights could begin as early as Tuesday.
Cloudy Twilight Zone for Center Overpass
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- Two cimels diligently collecting cloud measurements
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- Patches of blue sky teased as altocumulus remained overhead and to the south
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- Setting up two cimels at the Mobile Center site
After very hot and sunny weather for the first few CALIPSO overpasses in early May, the weather turned cooler, humid, and cloudy for the May 22nd overpass. The weather on May 22 was characterized by mainly altostratus clouds and a few rain showers with only glimpses of the sun at the north mobile site, center mobile site and Chitrakoot. Lorraine’s mobile north site may have some interesting twilight zone data.
Dave
We survived the overpass
Tom, Rich and I, along with Sumit, Daya, and Harish deployed three Cimel sunphotometers for the Calipso overpass. And the Pale Americans somehow lived through it. Left at 5:30 am returned at 7:20 pm. The day was almost as long as the flight over here. Clouds were not a problem for the south site until late in the day. I have no word yet as to how the grad students did with the hand held microtops.
My site was in the middle of a wheat field in a farming community and we were NEVER alone.
There were kids hanging around all day, even at 110 plus degrees. At one point we had 23 spectators.
Photo’s and more info will be added when I wake up tomorrow unless the boss calls me out of bed sooner.
Oh and did I mention it was HOT out there?
ww
Brent and Joel Hop the Train (May 6th)
TIGERZ left in the sweaty but capable hands of Newcomb and Eck.
Times of Solar Zenith Values for Center Overpass
May 4, 2008
AM
75 06:41
70 07:04
60 07:49
55 08:12
PM
55 15:59
60 16:22
70 17:07
75 17:30
May 22, 2008
AM
75 06:33
70 06:56
60 07:42
55 08:05
PM
55 16:06
60 16:29
70 17:14
75 17:37
June 7, 2008
AM
75 06:31
70 06:55
60 07:41
55 08:04
PM
55 16:11
60 16:34
70 17:20
75 17:44
June 23, 2008
AM
75 06:33
70 06:57
60 07:43
55 08:06
PM
55 16:16
60 16:38
70 17:25
75 17:48
(courtesy Dave Giles)
Mock Field Campaign
Today (May 4th) we conducted a practice run for the May 6th A-Train overpass near Kanpur. We used the opportunity to test logistics, sites and training in the use of cimels, microtops, GPS and google earth to find measurement sites. We left at ~5:30 am with four foreign scientists, 2 graduates students, 5 undergraduate students and Harish who does and knows all. Using GPS and google earth maps we relatively painlessly found and established 3 Calipso target sites all within ~25 m of the predicted path. Likewise we located four predetermined sites for microtops measurements that will provide some understanding of the . Overall it was extremely successful and I believe everyone was quite happy with the results AOD along the track ranged between 0.8 to 1.1 even in the high altitude site Nainital. Dust, fossil fuel combustion and coal pollution contribute to an interesting aerosol layer. All track and non track instruments seemed to functional normally.
The campaign was followed up by a mid afternoon training session on the microtops with the undergraduate students. Plans were also discussed for non overpass measurements in and around Kanpur.
The Drum Sampler was fully installed and will begin operation tomorrow morning.
Tom and Wayne are preparing to take over coordination and operations from Joel and me. It is extremely important that continuity between the foreign groups is established by the Indian participants who will have the experience from the previous campaigns as long as the Indian personnel remains the same.
bh
Kanpur Instrument status May Day plus 1
The lidar folks have put the system in shutdown mode. A slim possibility of a replacement exists in about a month.
The search for temperature resistant sun photometers moved into high gear. Problems have been identified in 328 (DP), 444 (extended) and 84 old canadian. Thus 394, 03, 137 and 32 remain viable for the campaign. One will replace 84 in Bareiley and the second will eventually go to Chitrikoot leaving two good instruments for mobile units. Likely for the May 6 overpass, three mobile units will be used.
The drum sampler will be staged tomorrow. Site selection and supplies gathered for the mock deployment on the 4th. Tom and Wayne arrive early tomorrow.
bh
Northern Sites Installation
Instruments #84, #158 and #452 were installed as planned at Bareilly, Pantanagar and Nainital respectively.
#84 is showing a lot of status ’s’ messages and on a return visit the system was checked out again, but no loose cables were found and the external Cimel battery was over 13V. It does get a number of AOD measurements per day, but is only just Barielly working. It will be replaced.
#158 showed no sign of charging the internal battery which has hovered just under 5V. It has continued to function normally however and is still providing a normal volume of data 3 days after installation. The battery doesn’t seem to be declining noticeably on Demonstrat (if at all), so it may be partially charging. It could also be replaced as it should be fine for mobile deployment activities.
#452 is working very well at Nainital and Mar 1 showed an interesting diurnal trend reaching as high as AOD of 1.0 at 500nm.
I haven’t looked at the inversion products for these sites yet.
Joel
The Kanpur Bakeoff
I (Holben) tested how my body would respond to 100 minutes of exposure to the most extreme heat conditions that Kanpur is likely to produce during an over pass period. I spent 100 minutes in full sun on the bright roof of our apt. Temperatures ranged from from 42 to 47° C depending on the sensor and where it was located but 45 is a pretty good estimate. I wore long sleeve shirt, straw hat, long light colored pants, white socks and sandals. I didn’t drink any liquid. I sweated profusely but stayed reasonably comfortable as the heat is a dry heat. All in it was quite tolerable. Given that we will have shade available and probably a car with food and drinks nearby, cell phone communication and will be spelling each other hourly, I think we will tolerate this pretty well as long as we dress properly and don’t try to over do it while on site. Watching the gardeners work in the heat of the day, they move slowly and wear a some sort of light head covering. All in we’d probably be best served to go naked.
