It鈥檚 hot. Like, 100 degrees F hot. And I鈥檓 carrying around this heavy, ultra nerdy backpack (which engineering school definitely prepared me for) with a laptop slung around my neck. As I make my way through the field at San Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER), waves of grasshoppers take to the air in hopes of avoiding my unforgiving boots. Even though I鈥檝e got grass seeds poking me through my socks, I keep wading through the sometimes waist-high grasses to finish my measurements. Oh good, now I need to climb through a barbed wire fence to take some different measurements. As I pass off the backpack and laptop to my coworker I notice one of the biggest spiders I鈥檝e ever seen, just chillin鈥� in the grass to my right (which makes me wonder how many more are just lying in wait in the grass I鈥檝e been walking through all day).
, I鈥檓 actually really glad that I get to do these things as part of my job as the Airborne Observation Platform鈥檚 lab technician (aside from the part with the spider, yeesh). This was just one of the days that we (that is, the AOP team) recently spent out at Domain 17. We were out at the core and re-locatable sites to take a couple of types of ground-based measurements while JPL's flew above us. We used our CIMEL to measure the amount of radiance that reaches the ground through the atmosphere. And that big ol鈥� nerdy backpack? That鈥檚 the , which we used to measure the reflectance of various plants at the sites. These ground-based measurements will help us determine what鈥檚 what as we analyze future airborne measurements (i.e. is that or ?), and by comparing the data to what is collected by the airborne sensor they will serve as a form of calibration for our airborne payload.
The D17 sites (SJER, Soaproot Saddle and Upper Teakettle) were chosen to study the effects of climate change at various elevations. We measured the reflectance of grasses, two types of oak and gray pine (among other things) at SJER and, as we went to higher elevations at Soaproot Saddle and Upper Teakettle, switched to the likes of cedar, manzanita and fir. With the change in vegetation, Soaproot Saddle and Upper Teakettle also provided a very welcome respite from the heat, the opportunity to stand next to giant Sequoia trees and the occasional hunter sighting. Granted, this isn鈥檛 exactly a typical day for me, especially since our data will be taken during 鈥減eak greenness鈥� and it鈥檚 now the beginning of October. So I do have to spend some time in the lab as a lab technician 鈥� go figure. Now that the NEON project is funded for construction, the AOP lab is coming together: within the next few months we鈥檒l have the instrumentation to make up our first airborne payload (imaging spectrometer, wLiDAR, and camera), and we鈥檙e hoping to get some wind beneath a Twin Otter鈥檚 wings this coming spring and summer. Before we can start our own test flights, I鈥檒l be busy learning how to operate the payload, helping to calibrate it in a variety of ways and working to optimize the field measurement processes. And when our test flight season does roll around, I鈥檒l get to fly the plane! Just kidding鈥ut I will get to fly in the plane. Not a bad gig for a lab tech.
