A follow-up experiment (called "FIFE Follow-On") took place at the same location from 1989 to 1993. The FIFE experiments are at the center of NASA's plan to develop a physically based approach for the use of satellite remote-sensing systems. More information is available on-line at http://daac.ornl.gov/FIFE/FIFE_About.html.
Data were collected through monitoring and through intensive field campaigns (IFCs). Monitoring which was performed nearly continuously through 1987, 1988, and 1989, consisted of the acquisition of AVHRR, Landsat, SPOT, and GOES satellite data; continuous acquisition of relevant meteorological data from 16 automated meteorological stations within the site; collection of gravimetric soil moisture surveys, streamflow data, and biometric measurements; and observation of relevant atmospheric optical properties to study the effects of atmospheric conditions on satellite remote-sensing images.
The IFCs had the specific objective of acquiring surface and airborne data in conjunction with the satellite overpasses to study the biophysical and energetic processes over spatial scales from millimeters to kilometers and temporal scales from seconds to an entire season. The IFCs required a large commitment of manpower and resources; thus, their combined duration during 1987 was only 57 days. Each of the IFC periods targeted a critical phase of vegetative development (IFC-1 "greenup," IFC-2 "peak greenness," IFC-3 "dry-down," and IFC-4 "senescence"). Ground measurements were acquired at 32 sites within the Konza Prairie and were complemented by measurements from a number of other sites (e.g., a dense network of 42 rain gauges in a watershed). Sample sites were placed within strata representing the major spatial variation in soil depth, seasonally integrated incident solar radiation, and management practice (e.g., grazing and burning).
In 1987 unusual weather conditions produced very similar conditions during the first three IFCs (wet soils and green vegetation) followed by a totally senescent vegetation cover and dry soil in IFC-4. During 1989 a 20-day (July24-August12) IFC was instituted to obtain the "dry down" missed during the IFC-3.
More information is available on-line at http://daac.ornl.gov/FIFE/FIFE_About.html.
The full SITEGRID_ID has the form "SSEE". The four digits of the SITEGRID_ID define the location of the site in terms of the number of nodes south (SS) and east (EE) of the grid origion. Colocated sites share the same SITEGRID_ID. For example, the STATION_ID 902 is replaced by the SITEGRID_ID with location code 1916, where 19 is the number of notes south (SS) from the grid origion, and 16 is the number of notes east (EE) from the grid origion.
The SITEGRID origin (0,0) is located at the upper left corner of the SITEGRID, with the following UTM coordinates:
A more complete list of acronyms is available at http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/cdiac/pns/acronyms.html. For additional terms, see the EOSDIS list of acronyms at http://harp.gsfc.nasa.gov/v0ims/acronyms.html.