October 2004 -- A new climatological site has been installed at Fargo, ND. The site is located on land owned by North Dakota State University. The site is operated by NDSU at their Microclimatic Research Station. This is part of the state wide North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network - NDAWN.
September 2004 -- A new menu item, Data Processing Procedures, has been added to our Instrumentation category. This new item contains detailed information about angular corrections and calibration applied to our shadowband data, as well as procedures for the generation of Langley voltage intercepts (V-naughts).
August 2004 -- UVMRP personnel will have a strong presence at SPIE's International Symposium on Optical Science and Technology and 49th Annual Meeting, 2-6 August 2004 at the Colorado Convention Center, Denver, CO, USA. Wei Gao is chairing the Remote and In-Situ Sensing program of the Remote Sensing and Space Technology session, which includes the two conferences at which UVMRP personnel are making presentations. Jim Slusser and Wei Gao are co-chairs, along with Jay Herman of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Germar Bernhard of Biospherical Instruments Inc., of the UV Ground- and Space-based Measurements, Models, and Effects IV (5545) conference. Presentations at this conference will be made by Jeff Hicke, John Davis and George Janson, with a poster presentation by Roger Tree and two posters by Wei Gao. In addition, Wei Gao is co-chair with David Shaw of Mississippi State University of the Remote Sensing and Modeling of Ecosystems for Sustainability (5544) conference, during which he will have two poster presentations. A meeting of all the UV effects sub-contractors working with UVMRP data is scheduled during this conference. Of particular note is that our USDA-CSREES Project Officer, Dr. Daniel Schmoldt, is the invited keynote speaker for the Monday morning start of the Remote Sensing and Space Technology session. Also during this week, personnel from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center will tour the UVMRP office and field facilities, plus the Atmospheric Sciences Center at CSU, in Fort Collins, as well as the Central UV Calibration Facility (CUCF) laboratories on the NIST Campus in Boulder.
May 2004 -- PAR sensor added to Wye, MD site, which is the last of the existing climatologic sites to be so equipped. All future sites (the newest of which is planned for Fargo, ND sometime this autumn) will have a PAR sensor. April 2004 -- A portable version of our UV-MFRSR with PAR instrument has been developed and deployed at the Indiana site to study UV and PAR levels under a canopy. Two support mechanisms exist -- a 12 foot long track where the instrument cluster can be manually pulled along while under a row crop, and an (up to) 7 foot tall tripod to follow the growth of a tall crop. Researchers interested in using this apparatus should contact Dr. Wei Gao by phone at 970-491-3609 or by e-mail at wei.gao@colostate.edu to discuss its applicability to their research, and schedule its availability.
April 2004 -- A Data Corrections menu item has been added to our Stations/Data category. Although quality control procedures are routinely followed during the transformation of raw data to our data products disseminated through our web site or by special request, subsequent corrections are sometimes necessary. This new menu item gives a brief description of such changes.
March 2004 -- A new climatological site has been added at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, Texas. This instrument was installed on the roof of the Science Building.
February 2004 -- PAR sensors added to Jornada, NM and Big Bend, TX climatological sites.
February 2004 -- Jim Slusser and Wei Gao are co-chairs of two of the conferences that will be part of SPIE's International Symposium on Optical Science and Technology and 49th Annual Meeting, 2-6 August 2004 at the Colorado Convention Center, Denver, CO, USA. The "Call for Papers and Announcement" for each conference are available by clicking the respective links: UV Ground- and Space-based Measurements, Models, and Effects IV (AM104) and Remote Sensing and Modeling of Ecosystems for Sustainability (AM103). Several UVMRP personnel will be making oral and poster presentations at these conferences.
February 2004 -- We've just published our 2003 Annual Report, available as a .pdf document here.
February 2004 -- A new web interface for the Stations/Data menu item has been implemented. Additional features include: Data Products section with Ozone retrievals, and optical depths, Instrument Characteristic's section so you can see our Calibration files, Filter Function files and Timeseries analysis, An expanded Data Plot's section which allows you to view the Angular Corrected Wavelength data as well as all Broadband, PAR and UVA for any date
January 2004 -- PAR sensors added to Homestead, FL and Mauna Loa, HI climatological sites.
January 2004 -- With the start of the new year, it is our pleasure to introduce to you our third field engineer, Roger Tree. He comes to us from private industry with 20+ years of experience installing and maintaining atmospheric monitoring equipment throughout the USA. He will accompany Bill and George on our first trips in 2004, with George to Hawaii [Paul, please hold the snow!] and with Bill to New Mexico, then we turn him loose to do Texas solo. Roger's contact info: roger.tree@colostate.edu, 970-491-3622. So please welcome Roger to our program.