Meeting on Monday, Oct. 21:
Attendees: Mary Ann Allan (chair), Luther Smith, Gary Lear, Bob Gilpin, Gary Stensland,
Van Bowersox, John Gordon
Concern was expressed about breaking up the combined data base that this collection represents and thus diminishing a valuable resource for the scientific community. While storage of the charts is not currently a problem (nor should it become one soon), the coordination office does not have the staff time to begin fulfilling individual requests for copies of charts; it also does not have the budget to provide them free of charge nor an adequate mechanism by which to charge for such a service. Scanning of the charts and storage in electronic format was suggested, but was thought to be cost-prohibitive.
Van Bowersox volunteered to store the entire rain gauge chart collection at the Central Analytical Lab. He felt that the CAL had a mechanism by which they could charge for copies of the charts to be made. The costs of transferring the collection from Colorado to Illinois were described as minimal.
The outcome of the discussion was that the coordination office should follow current
practice. Meanwhile, Van would pursue making arrangements to have the collection housed at
the CAL and made available to the larger scientific community. Mary Ann would take this
topic to the executive committee for discussion, and progress on this topic will be
discussed at the spring meeting.
Discussion revolved around the strength of the advisory and, to some extent, its nature. Of particular concern was the question of whether the advisory should recommend, either explicitly or implicitly, an adjustment to the data because of the O-ring problem or simply inform users of the existence of this consideration. In addition, the notion of also referencing the bias results from the USGS blind audit program was suggested.
A group consisting of Mary Ann Allan, Van Bowersox, and Gary Lear will prepare some
language to revise the advisory. The revision will be discussed at the spring meeting.
The discussion was
supportive of what had been done to date. It was felt that the trends group should proceed
with finalizing details of these plots and report again at the spring meeting. It was
suggested that either sodium or chloride be added to the list of ions to be displayed. It
was also suggested that the display of trends across geographic regions be considered,
though this was viewed as a longer term project.
Gary Lear reported that the 1995 AIRMoN data summary was ready and presented an overhead of a sample page from it for one site. It was very similar to the existing NADP/NTN summary page. The suggestion was made to specify "Arithmetic mean" as opposed to "Mean". Van Bowersox and Gary Stensland raised the possibility that the below detection limit counts were too high for sulfate, chloride, and sodium on the page that was displayed; Gary Lear said he would check them.
Gary Lear brought up the question of differences between field validity codes and data completeness criteria for AIRMoN and NADP. The ensuing discussion revealed some uncertainty about exactly what was being done now and if there was a need for a change. The outcome of the discussion was that, for purposes of data summarization, the AIRMoN field chemistry validity codes and completeness criteria will be handled in a manner as consistent as possible with the NADP procedure. Furthermore, Gary will clarify the points surrounding this topic, and it will be discussed again at the spring meeting.
Gary Lear brought a proposal from Rick Artz suggesting the use of the National Weather
Service stick gauge as the primary measurement device for precipitation amount at the
AIRMoN sites and using the amount recorded by the Belfort gauge as a back-up. Gary
Stensland and Van Bowersox stated that open literature reports had found the stick gauge
to be a more accurate measure. The following motion was passed for consideration by the
full technical committee: "The AIRMoN network should adopt the NWS stick gauge as the
primary measurement device for precipitation amount, utilize the Belfort recording rain
gauge as the secondary device, and use the sample volume as the tertiary value."
Meeting on Tuesday, October 22:
Attendees: Mary Ann Allan (chair), Luther Smith, Richard Cline, Gary Lear, Stephen
Vermette, Bob Gilpin, Richard Artz, Joseph Tokos, Stan Coloff, Wayne Cornelius, Mark
Nilles, Rona Birnbaum, Ralph Baumgardner, Gary Stensland
Mark Nilles suggested dropping the paper copy of the annual report altogether. Gary Lear said that approval for this had been given, but there does remain a desire to keep distributing it.
The suggestion was made to include a photograph of the sampler. Gary mentioned that cost considerations forced the "map product" to be an integral multiple of twelve pages in length. Thus, if additional material was to be added, something else would need to be sacrificed.
Mary Ann Allan was able to read the brochure before the meeting; she felt that it needed a thorough editing. She offered to send copies to everyone and solicited their comments; she asked that responses be returned to her within approximately a month. Rona Birnbaum offered to furnish some educational materials developed by EPA's Acid Rain Division, so that people could see if the brochure might be useful as a supplement. Steve Vermette offered to show a revised document to people, particularly teachers, concerned with precollege education and obtain their comments on the brochure's usefulness.
Bob Gilpin mentioned that he was seeking suggestions for related web sites that would be referenced on a home page registry. This would involve some description of the other site and would be more than just a "hot button."
Rona Birnbaum and Rick Artz expressed concern that data from other, particularly older, deposition networks might be lost if an effort is not made to seek it out; Luther Smith offered to assist such an effort. Mary Ann Allan mentioned that old data from EPRI projects is archived.
Gary Lear expressed concern that there are considerable demands being placed on the Coordination Office, and resources are limited. He sought guidance from the group in terms of a priority list for various endeavors.
Steve also related that the network had some problems during the transition period in getting all the rain gauges operating properly. As a result, he recommended utilizing the sample volume for deposition calculations.
Joe Tokos sought guidance on whether data should be corrected for the small amount of stabilizing solution present in each sample. While no formal decision was reached, it was generally felt that application of a correction factor would be appropriate since each sample would be subjected to a known effect from the added solution.
Steve and Joe both said that the issues they raised still needed to be reviewed by those most directly involved with the MDN. A meeting of that group was scheduled for that night.
The minutes for this meeting are to be posted on the NADP home page.