ABLE Deployment History

14 March 1996:

Presently, actions are proceeding along three fronts in the establishment of the ABLE:

(A) Site selection and development: Three sites within the Walnut River watershed have been chosen for implementation of the so-called Remote Sensing Sites (RSS):

Oxford, Kansas (Lat 37.273 N Long 97.095 W) At a small airport located 4 mi east of Oxford, Kansas. This is in the southernmost part of the Walnut Creek watershed.
Whitewater, Kansas (Lat 37.841 N Long 97.188 W) On the buffer area of Chemical Waste Management Inc. about 8 mi south of Whitewater, KS.
Beaumont, Kansas (Lat 37.627 N Long 96.538 W) Located approximately 4 mi south of Beaumont, KS. This site is shared with the ARM Program Intermediate facility.

The sites have met with initial approval from the landowners and are in the process of contract negotiation. NEPA approval is expected within a few weeks (site studies are presently underway).

Following approvals and contract negotiations, installation of small (6' X 8') trailers for radar and sodar equipment and pads for instrument location, etc. will begin. At present, the target date for instrument input is end of May, 1996. The ARM profiler is not expected to appear until mid-July at the earliest.

(B) Instrumentation: Two radar wind profilers are presently located at ANL awaiting deployment. One of these has just been purchased from Radian Corp. The second has been operating at ANL for several years with RASS and has an operating system different than the POP system with which many people are familiar. A RASS upgrade to the first system is on order.

Minisodars are to be colocated with the wind profilers. The enclosures have already been constructed; they await the installation of phased array antennae and integration with computers, etc. They are expected to be ready by the May time frame.

One eddy flux station is expected to be purchased this fiscal year to be installed at the central site.

Future instrumentation includes surface meteorological and soil moisture stations, additional eddy flux stations, and a radiosonde system.

(C) Data communications: The Oxford and Whitewater sites will have telephone data line service with internet connections to the central facility. The Beaumont site will probably require dial-up modem access.

(D) Interface to CASES: A science chair meeting on Feb 22-23 outlined several possible studies that CASES would like to begin in the 1997 time frame. These studies would use the ABLE suite of instruments and augment them as required.

26 July 1996:
A temporary site was set up at the Beaumont location during the week of July 15, 1996. The 915 MHz radar wind profiler with RASS and a doppler minisodar were deployed. Data is currently available on the Beaumont Site web page. Data transfer occurs once each hour via dial-up modem.

25 October 1996:
Starting September 16, 1996, the ANL 915 MHz radar was taken down and the ARM 915 MHz radar was installed in it's place. The radar and sodar at Beaumont are now both installed more permanently. For the time being, radar and sodar data are retrieved via modem under ANL control.

3 December 1996:
On November 20, 1996, the Sun Sparc was installed at Beaumont for collecting radar data. Consensus data products were not flowing until November 27th. Moments data products are yet to be available. Sodar data products continue unaffected.

16 December 1996:
On December 5, 1996, Beaumont radar moments data begins to become available.

17 March 1997:
On February 21, 1997, BLRS 915 MHz RADAR/RASS system and mini-SODAR were installed at Oxford site. Data links are not installed yet. (Oxford sodar was not operational until April 16, 1997).

23 May 1997:
Whitewater, Beaumont, and Oxford are all operating as remote sensing sites. Each has 915 Mhz radar with RASS and miniSodar. AWS (surface met stations) are operational at Beaumont, Oxford, and Smileyberg. Eddy correlation station with momentum and heat flux also operating at Smileyberg. Data transfers are hourly to Augusta and ANL. Primary web server for data display is http://www.atmos.anl.gov/ABLE/

30 January 1998:
As of September 26, 1997, all data hub and office functions were moved to the Central Site on Haverhill Road. We seem to finally be on track to start development of the Whitewater "permanent" site. Instruments at Whitewater have been at a temporary site since first installed during April 1997. Since about November 11, 1997 we have had a period of usable CO2 and moisture fluxes at Smileyberg.

29 April 1998:
Instrumentation has been dismantled at the Whitewater site to begin construction of the new "permanent" site. Data should be available as of June 22, 1998.

15 July 1998:
The 915 MHz radar with RASS and miniSODAR were re-deployed at the new Whitewater "permanent" site. Data flow started again on June 25, 1998. AWS and TDR systems should follow before the snow flies. Whitewater has been converted over to an ISDN data link. Only Beaumont remains as POTS (plain old telephone system).

2 September 1998:
The Oxford BLRS radar system is down for repair. The final 915 MHz amp is being evaluated. Some of the current activities: Augusta Central Site is being further developed with a trailer move and AWS pad installation. The Whitewater site is being further developed by adding an AWS pad and a TDR soil moisture array. A second ECOR system is in the procurement phase.

30 October 1998:
On October 27, 1998 the Augusta APO AWS started to collect data. On October 29, 1998 the Whitewater AWS started to collect data. Negotiations are underway to secure use of a site two miles south-east of Rose Hill as a second eddy correllation site.

26 April 1999:
On December 16, 1998 a new LAP-3000 four panel, five beam radar system was installed at Oxford. The BLRS system, which had been running at Oxford, was moved to the Central Site and run for a one month trial starting on March 19. On April 23, 1999 the Beaumont site went to ISDN service. On April 26, 1999 the Whitewater radar was shut off for phase-shifter repair.

17 June 1999:
On May 19, 1999, the Whitewater radar was back online and collecting data. On May 19, 1999 several sensors were added to the Whitewater AWS data flow: IRsurface, Solar, Albedo, and Soil Moisture. On May 20, 1999 Whitewater EBBR data starts flowing. On May 25 several sensors were added to the Smileyberg AWS data flow: Soil Temperature, Soil Moisture, Soil Heat Flux, and PAR. On May 26, 1999 the Whitewater TDR data collection moved over to ABLE control. From June 14-17, 1999 the Whitewater radar was down for phase shifter repair.

09 January 2001:
On Sep 8, 2000 Whitewater radar and sodar were removed for use in Houston then Salt Lake City field projects.
On Nov 3, 2000 The Whitewater radar and sodar were returned to service, with degraded radar signal.
On Jan. 9, 2001 the Whitewater radar was shut down for phase shifter repair. It was repaired and reinstalled on Feb 16, 2001.

09 May 2001:
On May 9, 2001 the ANL portable ECOR system was installed at the Smileyberg site as part of an intercomparison experiment between four ECOR systems.

04 June 2001:
June 4, 2001 the Oxford radar and sodar shutdown for temporary deployment in Phoenix, Arizona.
July 17, 2001 the Oxford sodar was re-installed. Radar final amp out for repair.

27 August 2001:
August 27-28 Beaumont radar is down for phaser shifter replacement.

08 October 2001:
October 8, 2001 the Oxford radar is back online with a repaired final amplifier.

29 October 2001:
October 29, 2001 the portable ECOR system at Smileyberg is taken down.

20 February, 2002:
February 20, 2002 ARM replaces the Beaumont Sparc/NFS with Linux/Samba. Data flow to ABLE/VME established Feb. 26th.

30 March, 2002:
March 30, 2002 the portable ECOR system is deployed at the new Brainerd site.

4 April, 2002:
April 4, 2002 Whitewater radar final amplifier is swapped out with an ARM spare.

September/October/November 2002:
September 27, 2002 Oxford radar taken offline for LAP-XM upgrade. October 18, 2002 Oxford radar operating with LAP-XM
October 15, 2002 Whitewater radar taken offline for LAP-XM upgrade. November 12, 2002 Whitewater radar operating with LAP-XM

June-August 2003:
June 3 : Beaumont radar taken offline for LAP-XM upgrade.
June 18 : Oxford radar and sodar taken down for JU2003 experiment
June 19 : Beaumont sodar taken down for JU2003 experiment
July 15 : Beaumont radar online (partly) after LAP-XM upgrade.
Aug 5 : Oxford radar operational again
Aug 11 : Beaumont sodar operational again
Aug 12 : Oxford sodar operational again
Aug 13 : Beaumont radar all ABLE data flow issues resolved

December 2003:
Dec 08 : Brainerd ECOR site dismantled. Will set it up next at Whitewater.

Jan-Mar 2004:
Jan 20 : Portable ECOR system deployed and operational at Whitewater.
Mar 9 : Oxford sodar operation improved with corrected tripoke settings.
Mar 10,11 : Swapping radar parts between Beaumont and Whitewater to test an ongoing RASS problem with Beaumont radar.

Jun-Oct 2004:
Jun 11 : Oxford HVAC breakdown. Shutdown radar and sodar data collection.
Jul 14 : Whitewater radar shutdown, probable bad phase shifter.
Jul 15 : Oxford radar and sodar removed for field experiment in Indiana, PA then shipped to ANL-E.
Sep 21 : Portable ECOR system removed from Whitewater, end of ABLE operations.
Sep 28?: Oxford AWS final offload, end of ABLE operations.
Sep 28 : Beaumont AWS, sodar shutdown, end of ABLE operations.
Sep 28 : Smileyberg AWS, ECOR shutdown, end of ABLE operations.
Sep 29 : Whitewater AWS, EBBR, TDR, sodar shutdown, end of ABLE operations.
Sep 29 : APO AWS and all data connections shutdown, end of ABLE operations.
Sep 30 : Offical last day of ABLE operations.

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Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiments - Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439