IITK Cimel windows cleaned with compressed gas on June 13th. Some liquid (condensation?) was accidentally allowed to spray on to the sun channel side but it quickly evaporated.
Instruments Cleaned with Compressed Air
June 10th-
#137: no apparent effect on existing visible mark*
June 11th-
#3, #158: no dust visible prior to cleaning
June 12th-
#328: Fairly dusty window, some small improvement with cleaning. Was not quite as dirty as #32 (IITK Cimel, which still needs to be cleaned.)
#83: no dust visible prior to cleaning
*Cleaning assessments by Alex
Spatial Variability Study on Track for June 11
We had a brief meeting today to prepare for the aerosol spatial variability study tomorrow. The students retained the Microtops from the Center overpass and all of them know where to deploy tomorrow already. I also stayed after the meeting to discuss flux measurements with Sachi.
We received some compressed air today. #137 (with the visible window contamination) was sprayed with the air but it had no apparent effect on the marking. The others will be cleaned in a similar manner when they are taken down to be packed for tomorrow.
We visited the Kanpur Cimel on the roof of the engineering building and found it to be working well and just adjusted the clock. The windows had some dust on them which was quite noticeable and we will return to clean these most likely on Friday.
Yesterday (June 9th), #328 worked normally for most of the day, but I later found it pointing straight up as in cloud mode, but not apparently working. When I activated the screen it briefly lit up and then went dead. At that point, the thunderstorms were starting. The next morning it was behaving normally again. I seem to remember Wayne saying he kept finding it this way when he was here (pointing straight up).
The previous day I had also found that #328′s clock was about 9 minutes off. This was probably due to the same problem we had with the automated data downloads when I was here in April– the cimel was configured to get its time corrected by the laptop whenever a download was performed but it never worked properly. It may have worked better for later groups, however. For me, this was enough reason to disconnect the DCP cable and just do manual downloads.
We did find a spare external Cimel battery on the Kanpur roof so we can now run five sunphotometers on the roof here, so we plan to put #328 up once again after the spatial analysis.
#328 was replaced with #3 today (which is once again using #444′s control box)– just the act of moving #3′s control box up to the roof caused it to lose power and the display went blank– so we reverted to #444′s box.
Alex sweated spectacularly, took photos of his food and pointed out that it was hot.
Brent leaves; #444 still not working.
Brent leaves Kanpur for Varanasi, then on to fix the Cimel at Ghandi College. He will return here on the 12th.
#444 and #3 had new components installed that were brought by Alex. #444 still does not work. #3 seems to work properly, but apparently this control box is unreliable so we have either broken even on this chip switch or even lost something if #3 is less dependable now.
#158, #137, #83 and #328 are running on the roof now. #328 (dual polar) did not seem to have as much data as it should have after yesterday’s test. We’ll evaluate again after today. It is downloading automatically to the PC, but not uploading to Aeronet as it should. I don’t believe this ever worked for us back in May either, so it will need to be uploaded manually. Tomorrow, either #328 or #158 will be replaced with #3 for further testing.
#137 was found to have a small blemish on it’s direct sun window. It’s not clear if this was there before the June 7th deployment or not, since it’s subtle. We can see if it has any apparent effect on AOD in comparison with the other Cimels on June 8th and 9th. I will run them in BCLSUN mode for a while today to facilitate this, if the sky is suitable.
We are intending to have a spatial variability study around Kanpur on the 11th, but it has not been confirmed yet since Sachi is on travel. I’ll try to firm this up with him by phone tonight if I don’t hear back from him. It might be that some or most of the students will be unavailable after the 12th, so we must take advantage of their availability before this.
Brent will go North on the 13th and replace the DCP battery at Bareilly and retrieve the pyranometers at Pantnagar and Nainital so that we can get a post-deployment calibration on them at GSFC soon.
Ready (almost) for June 7th Center Overpass
On schedule for Center Overpass activties on June 7th. Three Cimels will be deployed as normal, though the spacing will not be consistent with the desired 20km separation because the track has moved over the Ganges river which greatly limits accessibility.
Handheld microtops crew (4) will be deployed around the center site as for the first center overpass.
#83 did not perform well on the roof today (also a very warm day) exhibiting ‘error at starting plot’ messages, etc. #3, #137 and #158 will be deployed.
Update: June 5th
Joel has arrived in Kanpur as of the morning of June 5th (local). Alex missed his connection due to poor weather and should arrive the morning of June 6th.
#3, #137 and #83 are are back up on the guesthouse roof (with #158 which was already running). These were run all day on a hot, mostly cloudless day (including in BCLsun mode for several hours). At 4PM, it was still 106F in the shade so it should be a good test for field readiness. These data have been dumped to a PC and will be uploaded shortly.
#158 seems to be working well as well. It was not transmitting because the Vitel battery was at 5.2V. I’ve recharged it and re-started the transmitter which has sent 3 messages so far. The system must not be charging given how it was found on arrival so it would need to be changed out somehow. However, I don’t see alternative charge controller etc. setup here to use instead.
Harish is back from Nainital and Bareilly (with the extra robot he took). The Vitel battery he carried with him was left at Bareilly to facilitate charging and replacement here since battery power has been an issue. At Nainital, the problem was a loose zenith nut and a loose Cimel external battery connector. The system appeared to work normally for him. A few more trips and he’ll have enough frequent driver miles saved up for a free trip to Chitrakoot.
Tomorrow (June 6th): Center overpass planning meeting with Sachi and crew.
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
Hot days with consequences
The temps have been above 42°C for 6 hrs daily peaking at 46 °C in Kanpur. The equipment doesn’t like it. The biggest casualty so far is the Lidar, that Leosphere contributed, has failed. More accurately the laser has failed and cannot be repaired in time to contribute to the campaign. We have about 30 hrs of good data that will be combed.
Some Cimel photometers and transmitters are also being compromised typically as filter wheel errors and missed messages. The photometers showing problems are the new NASA owned dual filterwheel polar (#328), the new NASA #444 and the old AEROCAN #84 installed at Bareily. At Kanpur 137 and 32 are confirmed as good as are 452 (Nainital), 158 (Pantnagar but internal battery is not charging) and 108 (gandhi College). VSK (65) and New Delhi (396) will be evaluated as we receive the data and 304 and 443, 03 will be evaluated tomorrow Friday when we download the data without the transmitters confounding the assessment.
Perhaps Misha can give an assessment of the transmitters tomorrow at tea.
April 28th Instrument Status
Joel and Harish set up the Bareilly instrument late in the day 28.38996 N and 79.43696 E 169 m. It appears to be functioning properly. Curious monkeys are a concern. After some morning adjustments they will proceed to Nainital for the next deployment. VSK is supposed to be installed today and tomorrow but no word as of this writing. Five mobile sites are planned. Chitrikoot site visit is planned for Wednesday. Gandhi College is intermittent but worked most of today.
The Drum sampler and Leosphere EZ lidar were examined today and a first attempt at deployment is planned tomorrow.
Mikhail continues to sort out heat related problems affecting the reliability of the transmitters. He leaves for home via Delhi on Wednesday.
