Observational techniques on desert

1989 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 01044164
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Overseas Scientific Survey.
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: MITSUTA Yasushi Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Professor, 防災研究所, 教授 (90027219)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KAI Kenji Faculty of Geoscience, Tsukuba University, Instructor, 地球科学系, 講師 ; TSUKAMOTO Osamu Faculty of Liberal Art, Okayama University, Associate Professor, 教養部, 助教授 (40027298) ; SAHASHI Ken Faculty of Education, Okayama University, Professor, 教育学部, 教授 (80032754) ; INOUE Jiro Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Instructor, 防災研究所, 助手 (90027300) ; IKEBUCHI Shuichi Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Professor, 防災研究所, 教授 (20026181)
• Project Period (FY): 1989
• Keywords: Desert / Micro-meteorology / Groundwater / Obserbational method / Arid area

Research Abstract

In order develope observational techniques of boundary layer processes over desert Joint Research with Chinese scientists was made on Heihe River Basin in Gansu. Water from glacier on high Quilian mountains runs on the desert area forming oasisses and disappeares into desert in the north of this area. Automatic observing stations for wind, air temperature and humidity, radiation and soil temperature were established on the desert with normal instrumentations and solar battery. It worked well only one failier by thunder bolt. The A-D convertor showed zero point shift in low temperature conditions bellow freezing point and correction was required. A party of eight Japanese scientists with three Chinese scientists made a field experiment on the desert in March. At point on desert, the ground water appeared at only 90cm from the ground. At this point the surface few centi-meters are entirely dry but below that layer the space between sand particle (ca 36%) was filled with water for about 20%. And between 35-45cm was a layer or frozen sand. Humidity in the surface layer is very low almost zero point at some place and daytime but it increases up to about 80% in the early morning. Downward turbulent water vapor flux was observed by the Chinese group over Gobi desert in the daytime in September. We should conclude the situations over the desert area are very complexed. The aerosol observations of sand storms which happened during the observation are now under processing.
The results of this research work will be applied to the Sino-Japan Cooperative Program on Air Surface Interaction in Heihe Area (HEIFE), 1989-1993.