Friday 12/17/2010

New upper elevation location install of microclimate sensors.

One tired pup heading home from a long day in the field.

Thursday 12/16/2010

 

 

Success. The preliminary version of the image merging procedure is functional. This will allow for highly controlled stacking of SLC-OFF Landsat imagery (2003+).

Tuesday–12/15/2010

IDL programming with help from D. Fanning. He has a great website for IDL reference available at: http://www.dfanning.com/

Image pointers are a great way to define new variables within FOR loops. Crucial for reading in multiple Landsat images of varying ZYZ dimensions.

Tuesday–12/14/2010

Sweet! Made the cover!

Monday 12/13/2010

heading out to take down our sensors with a bag full of climbing gear.

the most important knot you can learn for tree climbing. the anchor knot.

Finally up and getting to work.

Friday 12/03/2010

 

Drying desiccant. We’ve managed to convert most of our house into lab space!

Monday-Wednesday–12/01/10

• Job applications
• Bolivia article: introduction, research questions, methods, statistical analyses.

Friday–11/26/2010

Collecting LiCOR 6400 in the rain in the Laupahoehoe Experimental Forest.

Sat-Sun: 11/21/10

• Completing reviews for Bio. Cons., For Eco., and JAG.
• Organized LiCOR 6400 data, verified curves, leaf drying.
• Rebuilt LiCOR 6400, new tubes, seals and chemicals.
• Finished Scan Line Corrections for Amazon land cover change project (70+ Landsat images).
• Job applications: organization and preparation.

Example linear correlations between SIB2 Modeled and field collected Net Carbon Assimilation Rates. This includes data from both the light and C02 response curves.

A dynamic light response over a 3 minute period following a replicated sunfleck (1500 ppm transition from steady state at 20 ppm).

Friday 11/19/10

 

car parked at one of our study sites

setup pre rain

setup post rain

home again, changing the filters for the c02 cartridges, the only good use for cigarettes, cheap filters…

Wednesday–11/18/10

Job applications, curve collection.

Improved LiCOR 6400 handle, reduces stress on attachment screws and allows for clipping a carabineer when collecting canopy measurements.

Second tripod used to collect location offsets from the differentially corrected stake. This particular offset allowed for curve collection in a forest gap 35 meters from the stake.

11/16/10–Tuesday

• Completed a job application.
• All Landsat images AutoMCU processed.
• Field work complete for the day, sensors up and running.

Interior forest sensors up and running

Sat-Sunday: 11/13-14/10

Field work setting up microclimate stations

Job applications

Hidden up there are two microclimate stations we spent 3 hours tree climbing to set up. Beautiful!

Thursday-Friday: 11/11-12/10

Thursday collecting LiCOR curves.

Notice abundant invasive species, including ginger, raspberry and guava, all within one small gap within one of the better native forests around. bummer!

At home the leaves are scanned at 600 dpi for area measurement.

Then oven dried at 55-65 C for 48 hours. Following this the samples are stored with desiccant until they are weighed, then analyzed for isotopes and nutrients.

Monday/Tuesday–11/10/10

1. LiCOR data collection
2. Checking on microclimate stations
3. Programming IDL procedure for writing large images (8-20 GB)
4. Job applications

An understory microclimate station with LiCOR 6400 collecting a C02 response curve in the background.

The Trupulse 3D laser system with LiCOR 6400 taking curve measurements in background.

My field assistant, Kai Turbo, taking a break.

Wednesday–11/10/10

• Article review
• Submitted job application
• Fixed computer issue resulting in frequent crashing
• Rebuilt LiCOR 6400, had leaks at tube seals and throughout the cuvette head. Ran full diagnostics. Runs perfect now! However, the tubes are a bit short so will look into ordering a replacement set.

Thursday–11/05/2010

• Repositioned microclimate stations
• Downloaded data and replaced desiccant in all datalogger cases
• IDL programming, I/O programs for large images
• Correcting SLC Landsat 7 Errors in newly processed Landsat imagery.

Sweet new tires, expensive but worth it for safety!

Upper elevation data download

Serious ginger invasion in our lower elevation traverse site, close to the climate tower. This will make for an interesting future project proposal.

Data download lower elevation top of canopy climate tower

Monday-Tuesday – 11/02/2010

Job applications sent (2).

New off road tires on car, it has been skidding in heavy rains, very dangerous for this windy rainy roads of Laupahoehoe!

Caught up on Scan Line Corrections of Landsat imagery for Amazon project.

Working on flowcharts for model using Visio, interesting flowcharting program.

Making 3D LAD map (a 22 GB image as floating point, yikes, needs to be converted to a byte array).

 

point could density from 0-0.5 m height

Thursday–10/29/2010

Finally completed the image subset procedure. Sweet. This is the only way to deal with multiple 8 GB LiDAR images. The I/O is also rapid, good for running through spatio-temporal models.

mapping out the microclimate model flowchart, here is the version as is showing individual IDL components, most have been started, highlighted yellow ones have been completed.

Tuesday–Friday, 10/29/2010

Job applications and IDL programming. Working on the final program to read in small memory management sections of the 8 GB LiDAR image. Almost complete, just some final details with interleave formatting.

Thursday–10/21/2010

 

• Finishing IDL programs and masking SLC errors from Landsat imagery for our land use project in the Amazon.
• Packed to go to the field and got the LiCOR setup.

Friday–10/22/2010

Car all packed and ready to go.

but it didn’t start….the starter was busted. had to have it towed to hilo for repairs.

Fortunately they managed to repair it within one day and by Saturday afternoon I was back in business and ready for field work on Monday!

10/19/10–Tuesday

• Rebuilt robots and installed in field, sensors up and running! was a cold and rainy day of climbing.

Rebuilding the sensors following calibration.

Equipment ready to pack in the car.

In the field in the rain.

1 Sensor installed in gap on a small traverse. 2 others in the canopy. 1 more in the forest interior.

Coiling some of our 100s of meters of cable…so many crazy tangles today!

Sensors finally all up! Just as the sun is setting, at least the rain let up for us! Uploading the final programs and verifying the data collection. All is well, time to head home.

Monday – 10/18/10

• Completed NSF proposal, yeah!
• Calibrating temp/rH sensors. This is very technical and requires a bathtub filled with ice water. Then a linear offset applied to each sensor post-processing.

• Following calibration we will be heading to the field to install them in the low elevation locations.

So the first approach didn’t work. The sensors were all over the place. This was due to the water temperature never stabilizing and different sections of the tub having different depths.

I resolved this using 60 lbs of ice and deeper water depth and removing the wooden supports to fit them all in the deep end.

Following a period of crazy readings while the ice cooled and the water stabilized, I obtained decent calibration points (from 13:27 on).

Calibration offsets calculated were very small.