Equipment available for IESRE project participants

      IESRE is committed to helping students and teachers conduct meaningful climate-related research. Teachers and students participating in IESRE projects can obtain equipment on loan in response to approved research plans. The plan should include a brief summary of the project's research question, anticipated results, an equipment list, an explanation of why the equipment is needed and how it will be used, and an estimate of how long the equipment will be needed. (This is the same procedure that scientists everywhere have to follow to obtain funding for their research projects.) You can find a research plan template here. For more information, contact David Brooks.

Pyranometer:
      For measuring insolation. Any pyranometer you build at one of our workshops is yours to keep. IESRE projects participants can return completed pyranometers for calibration at no charge. Additional calibrated pyranometers are available on loan. For measurements of broadband surface reflectance with two of these instruments, we might provide an uncalibrated instrument for the "downward pointing" measurement. That instrument will need to be calibrated relatively to the "upward pointing" instrument.
Two-channel reflectometer:
      For measuring broadband and near-IR surface reflectance. Two of these instruments are required to monitor broadband and near-IR reflectance. For healthy vegetation, there is a significant difference between broadband and near-IR reflectance and these two values are used to calculate an index for monitoring the health of vegetation. It is possible to install a low-pass filter over the broadband channel so it responds only to visible light. This can be used to calculated the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). This filtered version of the two-channel reflectometer is not a standard IESERE instrument, so contact us for more details.
Thermopile sensor:
      This pre-calibrated sensor detects thermal radiation and is used to measure the radiating temperature of any surface. It includes an amplifier that converts the sensor output to a signal suitable for input to A datalogger. An Excel file is used to convert voltage to temperature. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law, the temperature can be converted to radiated energy in units of watts per square meter. A 9-V battery is needed to power this unit. Even an inexpensive carbon "heavy duty" battery will power the unit continuously for a couple of days. For longer operation, any nominal 7-12V power source can be used.
Temperature sensors and radiation shields (for air temperature):
      The sensors, for measuring air, water, and soil temperature, are for use with HOBO data loggers (see below). Sensors for measuring air temperature should always be placed in a radiation shield. The shield pictured is asssembled from a kit of parts available from IESRE (~$10).
Data loggers:
      These HOBO loggers are recommended for collecting data from pyranometers, temperature sensors, and other instruments. The U12 logger (at the left) is no longer available for purchase, but IESRE has a some of them to loan for student projects. The newer higher-resolution UX120 logger (at the right) is recommended for logging smaller voltages – for example, for measuring reflected solar radiation from vegetation and other surfaces. The UX120 loggers also allow the accumulation of statistics (mean, max, min, standard deviation) over specified intervals. Input connectors, 2.5mm stereo plugs, are the same for both loggers.
Two-Channel Sun photometer:
      These handheld instruments are pointed directly at the sun whenever there are no clouds or other obstructions between the observer and the sun. They are used to calculate aerosol optical thickness at 505 nm and 625 nm. The output voltages from these instruments are manually recorded and an Excel file is available for processing the data.
Time-Lapse camera:
      For recording cloud conditions with time-lapse images. This "PlantCam" can also be used for other experiments where time-lapse image sequences would be useful. It requires 4 AA batteries (not included) and an SD memory card (included). There is an option to create film clips directly from the stored images, or this can be done with MovieMaker or other video editing software. The instrument is weatherproof, but it should not be left outside pointed directly at the sun.
Hand-held non-contact IR thermometer
      For measuring the temperature of surfaces. This instrument contains the same kind of sensor as the thermopile sensor device shown above.