Dear Weather Club Member,

Welcome to the New Year edition of our Weather Club e-news!

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Here’s a quick preview of this month’s contents
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Baby, It's C-C-Cold Outside…Wind Chill Volunteers: E-News Gets the Inside Story…Davis's New Soil Moisture Station Leaves Rain Gods Sputtering…Australian Students Study Air Quality with Davis Instruments and Innovative AirWatch Program…Who You Gonna Call? Davis! …Enjoy!

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Late Breaking News Flash! Vantage Pro® to Ring in the New Year at the Rose Parade
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After the champagne and Auld Lang Sang, but before the first football game on January 1, 2002, we'll all be watching the 113th Rose Parade from Pasadena. This year, KTLA-TV's coverage of the "most famous parade in the world" will include incredible floral floats, high-stepping equestrians, spectacular marching bands - and the Davis Vantage Pro weather station! If you are a Los Angeles area resident, or have a satellite dish, you might be able to catch our Vice President Joan Peterson, with her trusty Vantage Pro weather station, on KTLA-TV Channel 5 (or KTLA-DT Channel 31). KTLA's coverage will highlight the Vantage Pro during a live interview with Joan. KTLA producers will also be receiving real-time data on wind and (hopefully not) rain conditions as the parade winds its way down Pasadena's famed Colorado Boulevard. The Rose Parade is, of course, on New Year's Day, from 8 to 10 am PST.

KTLA-TV's website at http://www.ktla.com/entertainment/roseParade2002/index.htm has more information about its coverage of the parade. The parade's official website is at http://www.tournamentofroses.com.

If you do spot the Vantage Pro, you won't believe it's constructed entirely of petunia petals, wheat stems, and cardamom seeds. Our engineers never cease to amaze….

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Baby, It's C-C-Cold Outside
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I know Californians have no whining rights when it comes to cold weather, but my goodness, these days when you have to turn on the heater AND wear a sweater are just so stressful! Why, right now, my Vantage Pro console is telling me that it is only13 degrees outside! (Yes, that's Celsius, but it does sound so much better…) A quick scan of a few of our Davis users' weather web pages (see http://www.davisnet.com/weather/cool/world.asp ) does a lot toward warming me up: Potrorozu, Slovenia reports 0.28 ºC; Visby, Sweden is showing -2.2 ºC; and our poor weather station in Storefjell, Norway is enduring -8.4 ºC.

We like it warm out here. We like to sit on beaches in shorts. We like spring skiing in shorts. We like to sit at outdoor cafes and sip iced coffee, preferably in shorts. We put down-filled comforters on our beds when the temperature drops below 65ºF.

Apparently our love of warm weather may be why Californians are always happy, but not always the fastest thinkers! 15 years ago scientists recognized "Seasonal Affective Disorder," or SAD, which affects people who live where it is cold and dark. Treatment with artificial sunlight proved to be successful in alleviating the symptoms of depression for many SAD sufferers.

More recently, Tim Brennen of the University of Tromsø (which, at a few hundred miles from the Artic Circle is the most northerly university in the world) tested the theory that "winter blues" would also cause memory and concentration problems. But his findings demonstrated just the opposite!

Brennen tested 100 Tromsø residents for attention lapses, impaired memory, and slow thinking in June and again in December. He found that people did just as well on the tests in December as they did in June! In fact, on many of the tests, people actually did BETTER in December!

Cold and dark, or sunny and temperate, the weather certainly makes us who we are - and who our children are. A study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health back in 2000 reported that where it is warmer, more boys are born. The farther north and the colder the climate, the lower the birth rate for boys.

So what does all this prove? Well, as a life-long warm weather resident, I'm a bit too slow-thinking to figure it out. But who cares? Life is wonderful. Maybe one of my six sons knows.

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Wind Chill Volunteers: E-News Gets the Inside Story
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Back in October, the E-Newsletter reported on a change in the method by which wind chill is measured. We told you that researchers used human volunteers, with temperature sensors attached to their faces, to determine the actual effect of wind and cold on the most exposed part of a human - the face. The volunteers were used in clinical trials to validate data gathered by using an initial model: a mannequin head covered with a "skin" of thermoconducting material.

One of the volunteers in that study, Pierre Torigny, along with Joseph Shaykewich will present a paper on the clinical trials to the 3rd Symposium on Environmental Applications at the American Meteorological Society's annual meeting in January. Reading it has convinced me to keep my day job here at Davis and forego my dreams of becoming a wind chill test volunteer.

Torigny writes that the 12 volunteers, (six men and six women) aged 18 to 50, first submitted to a medical screening and physical before being selected for the test. Then they refrained from alcohol, aspirin, and caffeine (I'm out right there) for 12 hours before the test. Two at a time, the volunteers stood or walked on a treadmill in a refrigerated wind tunnel for 30 minutes at a time while the testers jiggled the temperature controls from -10°C to +10°C, sprayed them with water every 15 minutes, and battered them with wind speeds from 2 to 8 m/s. This was done in military clothing, with a face full of temperature sensors, and, here's the real deciding factor, a rectal probe to ascertain core temperature.

On behalf of all of us who have long felt that the wind chill formula didn't quite match what our own faces reported, I want to thank Pierre and his colleagues for volunteering. As for me, I think I'll hold off volunteering until the clinical trials of the "sun-basking on temperate beaches as stress reduction treatment" study comes along.

A summary of the paper titled "Clinical Trials for a New Canadian Wind Chill Program" can be found at http://ams.confex.com/ams/annual2002/3Environment/abstracts/27725.htm

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Davis's New Soil Moisture Station Leaves Rain Gods Sputtering
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There was a time when best soil-moisture technology available to our farming forefathers consisted of sacrifices to the rain gods and fervent wishing. Even now in the age of high-tech irrigation systems that can make even the most temperamental of rain gods irrelevant, modern growers still struggle with deciding when, how much, and how often to irrigate. And after those decisions are made, they still have to wonder about the depth of wetting and the specific pattern of their soil's moisture extraction. Then they can lie awake thinking about the cost of the water than runs off their fields when they overwater…

Well, Davis has come to the rescue! With our new Wireless Soil Moisture/Temperature Stations, farmers and turf managers can just glance at their Vantage Pro console to get real time readings on soil moisture.

Most soil moisture sensors on the market require the use of a hand-held meter to obtain readings. While the process is simple, it is labor intensive, and it can also disturb the soil and plants at the measurement site. Furthermore, the periodic readings provide just a snapshot of what is really going on, making it more difficult to track trends over time.

With Davis's new Wireless Soil Moisture/Temperature Stations, these problems simply don't exist. Data transmission is wireless, so the measurement site remains undisturbed. Readings are sent automatically to the Vantage Pro display console, so growers are freed from the chore of daily readings-they can simply view current, up-to-the-minute conditions whenever they like. They can even use the Vantage Pro console to set high and low soil moisture alarms, which will alert them to turn the irrigation system on or off.

Growers can set up a number of individual stations throughout their acreage, wherever conditions (including terrain, soil type, crop, and exposure) vary. Different crops have different water needs; lawns require more water than shrubs and ground covers do; and low, moist spots and heavily shaded areas need less water than those exposed to a full day's sun.

The Davis station comes with a Watermark® soil moisture sensor with a 15-foot cable. To measure soil moisture, the sensor uses an electrode imbedded in a granular matrix, which is in turn surrounded by a metal screen. As plants use water from the soil, the soil dries out, water is drawn out of the sensor, and electrical resistance increases. After irrigation or rainfall, the sensor takes up water and the resistance decreases. The reading is displayed on the Vantage Pro console in centibars, with a range from 0 to 200cb. While the basic Wireless Soil Moisture/Temperature Stations comes with a single sensor, up to three more can be added. This lets growers bury sensors at different depths, placing them at different levels of the root zone. By having sensors at different depths, the irrigation schedule can be adjusted as plants grow, seasons change, and the roots migrate further down into the soil. The Davis station also includes a stainless steel temperature probe with a 15-foot direct-burial cable for measuring air or soil temperature.

Sorry, rain gods, it seems your days of farmland sacrificial bounty are numbered. We suggest moving to the Sierra Nevada here in California - our snow gods are never short on winter worshippers!

Need more facts about soil moisture? Try these links: http://www.greenindustry.com/ij/2000/0600/0500sol.asp; http://www.earthsystemssolutions.com/assets/monitoring.htm; or http://www.sowacs.com/sensors/sensingaug.html

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Australian Students Study Air Quality with Davis Instruments and Innovative AirWatch Program
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Ask a student in a western Australian school how the weather is, and you might get a surprisingly precise answer. An innovative educational program called AirWatch has placed Davis weather stations, along with air monitoring equipment, in hundreds of Australian schools. The goal of the program is to encourage students and their parents to change their behavior as it relates to air quality.

The program for primary school students includes learning what gases air contains, what air pollution is, and how weather affects air quality. Students then discover ways they and their parents can improve the air quality. They use Weather Wizard II weather stations to log current weather data at their school.

For secondary school students, the program is a bit more involved. Students are actually able to test the air for levels of carbon particulates and nitrogen dioxide. They use Weather Monitor II weather stations and air monitoring equipment that was developed by CSIRO (Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization) and AirWatch. They study and collect data on air quality and weather, summer (photochemical) smog, winter smog (haze), as well as pollen and vehicle traffic counts.

A sponsor, AlintaGas, funded the primary AirWatch program that provides teachers with a manual and a box of materials free of cost.

"Teachers get a whole box of materials that can be used to implement all the activities in the manual," said Gabby Robertson, AirWatch Coordinator. "They find this resource very useful in the classroom--as everything they need to study weather and air quality is in the box--we believe convenience is the key to success in the classroom!"

Students post their data on the AirWatch website where it is converted to graphical representations and is accessible to all the schools.

"Currently, only the schools use this data," said Robertson. "But we have organizations showing interest in obtaining weather information because we have so many stations over the Perth metropolitan area that it would help our Bureau of Meteorology in predicting local storm fronts and rainfall."

Robertson said that teachers and students in the United States or elsewhere can log onto the website to learn what their counterparts on the other side of the world are doing. They might even consider partnering with an Australian school to share weather data. Email contact information for participating teachers and schools is listed on the page.

In Western Australia and Victoria, AirWatch also runs a program called WeatherWatch in conjunction with one of the local television stations. About 50 different schools provide weather data for a nightly weather segment on a weekly basis.

Robertson, who will leave the program shortly to "take on a career in motherhood," is finding it difficult to hand over the reigns to this creative and unique program. "Although we are only a small team with grand ideas, the program has grown substantially in the last two years. I know it will continue to grow. Other states are chasing sponsorships and may approach television stations to air weather and air quality data. It's a very exciting program."

The AirWatch web page is at http://www.airwatch.mrwa.wa.gov.au. Definitely worth checking out!

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Who You Gonna Call? Davis!
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Each month after the E-newsletter goes out, we receive messages back. Sometimes the messages are in response to a story we shared; other times they are a request for help of some kind. We read all the e-mails, answer those we can, and pass the rest on to the appropriate departments.

We think you should know, though, that if you're interested in the fastest possible reply, news@davisnet.com may not be the best place to send your message. Questions about how things work should be addressed to tech support directly at support@davisnet.com. For general information about the products, such as how much cable comes with a station, or to request a catalog, contact sales@davisnet.com.

Please continue to send your comments, weather URLs, and story suggestions to news@davisnet.com. We look forward to getting your comments and any responses you have to the E-newsletter. Member participation is what keeps the E-newsletter alive and kicking.

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Well, that’s it for this month. Will be checking in again in February. Until then - stay warm and dry!
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