The density of vegetation stands significantly controls turbulent exchange of momentum, heat and mass. Interestingly, most full-scale plant canopy studies done so far focussed on dense canopies. Less information is available for sparse canopies even though they form a significant part of the global land surfaces - in particular in the boreal zone. The current experiment was run at the long-term 'Kennedy Siding' tower 60km South of MacKenzie in Central British Columbia, Canada. The stand surrounding the 'Kennedy SIding' tower has a mean canopy height of h = 16 m with an open trunk space. At the time of the experiment, the canopy had a low canopy cover of only 24.3% and a Leaf Area Index of 1.38.

Data was sampled using a vertical array of ultrasonic anemometers. Eight Campbell Scientific CSAT-3 ultrasonic anemometer thermometers were simultaneously operated at different heights (z/h = 0.16, 0.44, 0.68, 0.87,1.06, 1.25, 1.56, and 1.96). This set-up was run for four weeks between August 22 and September 17, 2007.

These measurements were complemented with a profile of fine-wire thermocouples to retrieve an accurate vertical profile of mean temperatures. Data from all levels and sensors were synchronized at 10 Hz.

Upcoming Publications on the Kennedy Siding 2007 campaign

Christen A., Novak M., Black T. A., Brown M. (2008): 'The budgets of turbulent kinetic energy and sensible heat flux within and above a sparse Lodgepole Pine stand', 18th Conference on Atmospheric BioGeosciences / 28th Conference on Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, April 27 - May 2, 2008.

Christen A., Novak M. (2008): 'Higher-order statistics of the turbulent flow in a sparse Lodgepole Pine canopy', AMS 18th Symposium on Boundary Layers and Turbulence, June 9 - 13, 2008.