Development of an autonomous, monthly and daily, rainfall sampler for isotope research

Ankor, Martin J.; Tyler, Jonathan; Hughes, Catherine E.

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2019.04.074

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Traditionally, precipitation samples for isotope analyses are mostly collected on a monthly integral basis (e.g., in the Global Network of Isotopes in Precipitation, GNIP; IAEA/WMO, 2019). Yet, due to the advent of laser-based isotope analyzers and the associated decreasing costs for analyses (Berman et al, 2009;Herbstritt et al, 2012;, shorter collection periods (e.g., weekly integral samples) have become more popular (e.g., Otte et al, 2017). An important advantage of sampling schemes with a higher temporal resolution is the gain in flexibility.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although isotope analyzers have become field-deployable, enabling high-resolution on-site rain analyses (Berman et al, 2009;Herbstritt et al, 2018a;Munksgaard et al, 2011Munksgaard et al, , 2012Pangle et al, 2013;von Freyberg et al, 2017;Windhorst et al, 2017), many researchers hesitate to take their analyzer to the field due to the risk of damaging the expensive device and due to logistical constraints such as high power demand (Herbstritt et al, 2018b). Hence, most samples are still obtained in more traditional ways for subsequent analysis in the laboratory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another noteworthy open-source device is the autonomous rainfall sampler by Ankor et al (2019), which collects daily and monthly samples. Here, the water flows by gravity through the partly 3-D printed system and is elegantly guided by a split tipping bucket and a "water switch" into the daily and monthly bottles with volumes of 225 mL and 2 L, respectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A combination of design features effectively reduces post-sampling evaporation. In the spirit of open science (see Ankor et al, 2019;Hartmann et al, 2018;Nelke et al, 2018), we provide a detailed description of our customizable collector and its components. Moreover, we present the results of a 26-week test addressing the evaporation reduction capacity of the device in a warm climate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Technical note: A microcontroller-based automatic rain sampler for stable isotope studies

Michelsen¹,

Laube

Friesen

et al. 2019

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Automatic samplers represent a convenient way to gather rain samples for isotope (δ18O and δ2H) and water quality analyses. Yet, most commercial collectors are expensive and do not reduce post-sampling evaporation and the associated isotope fractionation sufficiently. Thus, we have developed a microcontroller-based automatic rain sampler for timer-actuated collection of integral rain samples. Sampling periods are freely selectable (minutes to weeks), and the device is low-cost, simple, robust, and customizable. Moreover, a combination of design features reliably minimizes evaporation from the collection bottles. Evaporative losses were assessed by placing the pre-filled sampler in a laboratory oven with which a diurnal temperature regime (21–31 ∘C) was simulated for 26 weeks. At the end of the test, all bottles had lost less than 1 % of the original water amount, and all isotope shifts were within the analytical precision. These results show that even multi-week field deployments of the device would result in rather small evaporative mass losses and isotope shifts. Hence, we deem our sampler a useful addition to devices that are currently commercially available and/or described in the scientific literature. To enable reproduction, all relevant details on hard- and software are openly accessible.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Technical note: A microcontroller-based automatic rain sampler for stable isotope studies

Michelsen¹,

Laube

Friesen

et al. 2019

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…Commercially available sequential samplers such as revolver type samplers (e.g., Rücker et al, 2019) usually need electricity to be operated and are costly. Self-built sequential samplers, using open lowbudget microcontrollers, e.g., Arduino TM (Aemisegger et al, 2015;Nelke and Selker, 2015;Hartmann et al, 2018;Ankor et al, 2019;Michelsen et al, 2019) are flexible but need energy, and a certain level of electronic knowledge is required. Instead, field-deployed laser spectrometers allow the isotopic composition of rainfall to be measured directly in the field at a high temporal frequency (Berman et al, 2009;Munksgaard et al, 2012;Tweed et al, 2016;von Freyberg et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Sampling Quality of a Low-Tech Low-Budget Volume-Based Rainfall Sampler for Stable Isotope Analysis

et al. 2019

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To better understand the small-scale variability of rainfall and its isotopic composition it is advantageous to utilize rain samplers which are at the same time low-cost, low-tech, robust, and precise with respect to the collected rainwater isotopic composition. We assessed whether a self-built version of the Kennedy sampler is able to collect rainwater consistently without mixing with antecedent collected water. We called the self-built sampler made from honey jars and silicon tubing the Zurich sequential sampler. Two laboratory experiments show that high rainfall intensities can be sampled and that the volume of water in a water sample originating from a different bottle was generally less than 1 ml. Rainwater was collected in 5 mm increments for stable isotope analysis using three (year 2011) and five (years 2015 and 2016) rain samplers in Zurich (Switzerland) during eleven rainfall events. The standard deviation of the total rainfall amounts between the different rain gauges was <1%. The standard deviation of δ 18 O and δ 2 H among the different sequential sampler bottles filled at the same time was generally <0.3 for δ 18 O and <2 for δ 2 H (8 out of 11 events). Larger standard deviations could be explained by leaking bottle(s) with subsequent mixing of water with different isotopic composition of at least one out of the five samplers. Our assessment shows that low-cost, low-tech rain samplers, when well maintained, can be used to collect sequential samples of rainfall for stable isotope analysis and are therefore suitable to study the spatio-temporal variability of the isotopic composition of rainfall.

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Evaluating input data sources for isotope‐enabled rainfall‐runoff models

Watson,

Birkel,

Arciniega‐Esparza

et al. 2024

Hydrological Processes

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Isotope‐enabled models provide a means to generate robust hydrological simulations. However, daily isotope‐enabled rainfall‐runoff models applied to larger spatial scales (>100 km2) require more input data than conventional non‐isotope models in the form of precipitation isotope time series, which are difficult to generate even with point station measurements. Spatially distributed isotope data can be circumvented by isotope‐enabled climate models. Here, we evaluate the hydrological simulations of the J2000‐isotope enabled hydrological model driven with data from corrected and un‐corrected isotope‐enabled global and regional climate models (isotope‐enabled global spectral model [IsoGSM] and isotope‐enabled regional spectral model [IsoRSM], respectively) compared with 1 year of measured reference station and a yearly average precipitation isotope input for a pilot site, the data‐scarce sub‐humid Eerste River catchment in South Africa. The models driven by all input products performed well for upstream and downstream discharge gauges with Nash Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) from 0.58 to 0.85 and LogNSE of 0.66 to 0.93. The simulated δ2H stream isotopes using the reference J2000‐iso and J2000‐isoRSM were good for the main river with a stream Kling Gupta efficiency (KGE) of between 0.4–0.9 and the top 100 Monte Carlo simulations varying by around 5‰ for δ2H. For smaller tributaries the model was unable to capture the measured stream isotopes due to biased precipitation isotope inputs. Adjusting the J2000‐iso with a bias corrected IsoRSM improved the stream and groundwater isotope simulation and outperformed the model driven by an average yearly precipitation isotope input. Differences in simulated hydrological processes were only evident between the models when evaluating percolation with unrealistic simulations for the standard J2000 model. While the regional climate model is computationally more intensive than its global counterpart, it provided better stream isotope simulations and improvements to simulated percolation. Our results indicate that isotope‐enabled climate models can provide useful input data in data scarce regions for hydrological models, where improved water management to address climate change impacts is needed.

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Development of an autonomous, monthly and daily, rainfall sampler for isotope research

Cited by 9 publications

References 40 publications

Technical note: A microcontroller-based automatic rain sampler for stable isotope studies

Technical note: A microcontroller-based automatic rain sampler for stable isotope studies

Assessing the Sampling Quality of a Low-Tech Low-Budget Volume-Based Rainfall Sampler for Stable Isotope Analysis

Evaluating input data sources for isotope‐enabled rainfall‐runoff models

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