The BOREAS Information System
There were a variety of field campaigns in BOREAS, ranging from the initial field visits in 1993 to the current field campaigns in 1996. They are all detailed in the text below.
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1993 was a year of planning and organization in preparation for the massive field campaign season starting in 1994. There were many important things accomplished during this year, including:
View more information on the 1993 BOREAS setup.
The ground teams kept up a full schedule of activities from beginning of IFC-1 through and in some cases beyond the end of IFC-3. Most of the tower flux sites were operating during this entire period along with associated soil moisture, ecological, and trace gas studies.
Climatologically, 1994 was not a normal year for the BOREAS region. 1994 set a new record for the longest frost-free period at Prince Albert National Park (SSA); the last spring frost was recorded on 9 May and the first full frost occured on 7 October giving a frost-free period of 150 days, which may be compared to the previous record of 125 frost-free days in 1988. At the same time, the NSA experienced one of the dryest years on record.
There were five field campaigns held in 1994. They were:
Read a complete report on what work was accomplished in BOREAS-94 in the BOREAS-94 Operations Document (Acrobat format).
A series of "golden days" (one set per field campaign per study area) were identified by the BOREAS staff and scientists, judged to be the best days within each IFC -- the clearest days with especially good ground team data combined with many successful airborne remote sensing and flux measurement missions. These "golden days" will be the focus of the most intense scientific scrutiny by the BOREAS Investigators.
| BOREAS "Golden Days" 1994 | ||
|---|---|---|
| IFC | SSA Golden Days | NSA Golden Days |
| FFC-W FFC-T IFC-1 IFC-2 IFC-3 |
Feb 5 - Feb 9, 1994 April 17, April 19, 1994 June 5 - June 9, 1994 July 21 - July 25, 1994 Sep 10 - Sep 17, 1994 |
Feb 5 - Feb 9, 1994 April 17, April 20, 1994 June 5 - June 12, 1994 Aug 3 - Aug 8, 1994 Sep 5 - Sep 10, Sep 17, 1994 |
The Focused Field Campaign for Winter (FFC-W) was carried out during February 1994. In spite of brutal weather conditions (-45 degrees C), the field teams, drawn principally from the HYD and RSS groups, managed to sample snow transects arranged under the remote sensing aircraft flight lines.
In April, FFC-T (Focused Field Campaign-Thaw) began and was targeted at studying the forest during the thaw. FFC-T involved many of the same ground teams as in FFC-W but the two radar-equipped aircraft, the DC-8 and the CV-580, were added to the optical remote sensing aircraft (C-130, ER-2, and Chieftain) for the campaign. After a long period of cloudy skies, a large high pressure air mass moved over the SSA for a day and then slid northeast to the NSA to give near-perfect conditions there the next day. Almost all the successful airborne optical remote sensing flights for FFC-T were flown over both study areas in two sets of coordinated missions on these two days, 19 and 20 April 1994.
At the outset of IFC-1, around 150 scientists were at work on the ground taking a wide range of meteorological, ecological, hydrological and remote sensing measurements. The BOREAS research aircraft were in the SSA for the first half of IFC-1, then they moved the 400 miles up to the NSA to complete a large number of missions there in two days of clear weather on 6-8 June 1994. Click here to read a detailed description of IFC-1 1994.
The initial focus of IFC-2 was in the Southern Study Area (SSA). On July 21 1994, clear skies over the entire 140x60 km SSA allowed all ten aircraft to fly sixteen research missions. The resulting data set is truly impressive: the surface measurements made by twenty-five science teams on the ground, the optical and microwave remote sensing data collected from aircraft, and a set of aircraft low-level surface flux measurements. The aircraft moved to the Northern Study Area (NSA) on 26 July 1994. Fires in northern Canada were causing some problems. The nearest fire to the NSA was located some 30 miles north (and directly upwind) of the area, and was burning on a twenty mile front. Collecting good data under these conditions was difficult for ground teams and impossible for most of the aircraft equipped with optical remote sensing equipment. On the last morning of IFC-2, the skies cleared for just over two hours; long enough for the NASA C-130 to acquire a minimum data set. Click here to read a detailed description of IFC-2 1994.
In IFC-3, most of the aircraft started in the NSA then migrated south to the SSA on 8 September. Due to clouds and smoke, this data set was incomplete. Late in the IFC, a narrow band of clear weather allowed a full program of airborne optical remote sensing missions under perfect blue skies at both study areas. In total, more than 350 airborne missions (remote sensing and eddy correlation) were flown during the 1994 field year. Click here to read a detailed description of IFC-3 1994.
During 1995, several flux tower sites were run. These included SSA-Fen and NSA-OBS. The SSA was heavily hit by severe fires in the summer of 1995 -- several sites were evacuated but luckily no infrastructure damage occured, and the area around the sites remained undamaged.
BOREAS Investigators got funding to return to the field for four campaigns in 1996. These include a limited winter campaign (FFC-W '96, February), a small spring/thaw campaign (IFC-1 '96, April), a large summer campaign (IFC-2 '96, July), and a large autumn campaign (IFC-3 '96, October). This return to the field is to address some major shortcomings in the 1994 data sets, and to try and answer some unresolved questions raised by the 1994 data. Click here to read a detailed description of these questions.
Read a complete report on what work was accomplished in BOREAS-96 in the BOREAS-96 Operations Document (Acrobat format).
FFC-W '96 was run only in the Southern Study Area. Several teams arrived to do snow studies and the new C-130Q flew some runs over the site. Click here to read a detailed description of FFC-W '96.
The First Intensive Field Campaign for 1996 (IFC-1 '96) ran from April 2, 1996 to April 28, 1996 in the NSA and the SSA. Several teams arrived to do snow studies and to start long-term monitoring that will run till winter. Click here to read a detailed description of IFC-1 '96.
The Second Intensive Field Campaign for 1996 (IFC-2 '96) ran from July 8, 1996 to August 9, 1996 in the NSA and the SSA. A large contingent of science teams were in Canada trying to get smoke-free data to compare with IFC-2 in 1994 (where a good deal of data was tainted by smoke). Click here to read a detailed description of IFC-2 '96.
The Third Intensive Field Campaign for 1996 (IFC-3 '96) ran from October 1, 1996 to October 21, 1996 in the NSA and the SSA. The science teams were in Canada trying to get a good record of the plants shutting down for the winter. In 1994, there was still activity in some trees and the mosses at the end of September.
