Portable automated research Micrometeorological stations (PARMS) deployed at the Tar Creek Superfund site for enhanced environmental monitoring

Recently, portable automated research micrometeorological stations (PARMS) were designed and fabricated by staff at the Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS) to provide enhanced observations of atmospheric conditions at remote locations. Each station includes sensors to measure standard meteorological variables including air temperature and humidity at 1.5 m, downwelling solar radiation, and rainfall. However, the sites also include a 3-dimensional sonic anemometer at 2 m, a net radiometer, an infrared temperature sensor to measure surface skin temperature, and a pyranometer mounted to measure reflected shortwave radiation. The combination of sensors allows the sites to measure additional variables of the surface and radiation budgets including sensible heat flux and albedo. Furthermore, the stations were designed to be highly mobile. As such, a site can easily fit into the bed of a pickup truck or on a trailer, and deployed in remote locations with approximately 30 minutes of installation time. Once deployed, the sites operate in a network manner and collect research quality observations at 1-minute intervals and transmit the data to OCS.

During 2005, four PARMS were deployed at the Tar Creek Superfund site near Picher, Oklahoma to provide enhanced environmental monitoring. At this location multiple research objectives were identified including: quantifying precipitation variability at the Tar Creek watershed for initialization into hydrologic models, investigating the spatial variability of surface observations across the watershed, and comparing radar estimated precipitation and variability with in situ observations. Future research will also include an air quality monitoring focus whereby the PARMS will collect vital meteorological information in concert with sensors that sample particulates in the atmosphere. This study will provide background information on the PARMS at Tar Creek as well as results from the ongoing precipitation study.