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LTER Site Byte
LTER Site: Niwot Ridge LTER
Contributor: Todd Ackerman (Sep 18, 2006)
Site Byte:
The personnel of Niwot Ridge LTER Information Management over the past year has consisted of Information Manager Todd Ackerman and Student Worker Anobha Gurung. It has been another busy year for the IM staff. We have been working on several new projects on top of the centralized data entry/process/dissemination.
One major dataset undertaking that has occurred this year was to re-visit our 50+ year climate record for the D1 and C1 Station and the 20+ year record at the Saddle Station. We realized a shortcoming in the data when it comes to modeling. We needed to have a solid/standard record of daily values for precipitation and temperature for these main stations, and there were many missing days throughout such a long record causing false trends when the long-term record was analyzed. Using adjacent climate stations and statistical methods we filled and flagged these missing days so that modeling could be better performed when needed. The datasets are nearly complete, as we are revisiting some of the methodology used.
We have also been developing a query-able system for the chemistry data produced by our in-house Kiowa Environmental Chemistry Laboratory run by Chris Seibold. In the past these files existed as MS Excel files and only some of the data posted as ancillary data to the core datasets. This new query system at the moment is available internally only until use permissions and proper metadata can be developed. It has vastly improved the compilation of data for researchers when requested.
We are also now installing the latest FreeWave HT-plus radio system for two new sites (new high frequency data collecting eddy-flux towers run by Peter Blanken) and adding one to the existing Soddie Site to allow for Deltev Helmig’s group to better access and control their sampling tower remotely in the winter. Our field personnel (Mark Losleben and Kurt Chowansky) have been key in getting this project going.
This year we have also been participating in the DayCent-Chem biogeochemical cross-site inter-comparison led by Jill Baron. Along with several other LTER sites (NWT, CWT, HBR, and HJA), as well as experimental forest sites and National Parks, we attended workshops and submitted data to Baron's group to look at C and N dynamics.
We have recently upgraded the core LTER file/web server CULTER from a Sun Ultra 60 to a Sunfire V250. This has vastly increased our file storage capabilities allowing us to make larger datasets such as imagery more easily accessible. It also allowed us to consolidate one other LTER server SNOBEAR with CULTER to reduce the number of machines to maintain. We are also upgrading our Windows server from a development server (Dell PowerEdge 500SC) to a much more powerful server (Dell PowerEdge 2600) which will allow us to serve data publicly from the MSSQL RDBMS which the previous machine could not handle from lack of system resources.
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