Kessler Farm Field Laboratory PicoNet

When you hear the sound of rain, what is going through your mind?  Are you thinking about how your grass or garden can use the water?  Are you thinking about how the rain will interfere with your upcoming softball game?  Well, the next time it rains, take some time to really listen to the rain.  You will become immediately aware of patterns in the rainfall intensity.  Sometimes the sound of the rain will even have a musical quality.  The question that we may ask ourselves is “What causes these variations and how are these temporal variations perceived spatially?”

In order to answer such questions as these, a network of rain gauges is currently being developed at the Kessler Farm Field Laboratory (KFFL).  The network will contain 6 “nodes” at locations scattered across the farm.  An illustration of the locations of the nodes is given in Figure 1.  The smallest spatial separation between two nodes is 350 m and the largest separation is 1500 m.

Figure 1. Location of the nodes in the KFFL PicoNet.  The minimum spacing is 350 m and the maximum spacing is 1500 m

Each node in the KFFL PicoNet will include three tipping bucket rain gauges and perhaps an optical disdrometer.  A disdrometer is used to measure the sizes and numbers of rain  particles.  Data from these instruments will be recorded using data loggers and then transmitted via radio links to a central hub.  The hub, which will be housed at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program Site, serves as the ``brain'' of the PicoNet.  It will be used to coordinate traffic on the telemetry network, synchronize the clocks of the data loggers, and most importantly the collection  and pre-processing of all incoming data.  The resulting data streams will be available to the general public in real-time via an internet link.  The data will also be archived.

From a meteorological perspective, the KFFL PicoNet data will be used to study the small-scale spatial variability of rain and validate polarimetric and conventional rainfall retrieval algorithms.  However, a wide array of KFFL researchers have also expressed a strong interest in the data.  These individuals include representatives from Meteorology, the Environmental Verification and Analysis Center, the Oklahoma Climate Survey, Botany, Microbiology, Zoology, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Environment, and the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies.

For more information on the Pico-Net, please contact Dr. Phillip Chilson at chilson@ou.edu.