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

Michelsen, Nils; Laube, Gerrit; Friesen, Jan; Weise, Stephan M.; Said, Ali Bakhit Ali Bait; Müller, Thomas

doi:10.5194/hess-2019-93

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Three automatic rain collectors were installed in the coastal plain (Station M1) and the mountains (Stations M2 and M3), to measure precipitation amounts and gather samples (Table S1). To avoid postsampling evaporation, the devices harness the “tube‐dip‐in‐water collector with pressure equilibration tube” principle (Gröning et al, 2012) and automatically collect samples in predefined time intervals (for details, see Michelsen et al, 2019). The rain was collected via a funnel and drained freely in the sampling device below.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stable Isotope Composition of Cyclone Mekunu Rainfall, Southern Oman

Müller

Friesen

Weise

et al. 2020

Water Resources Research

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stable Isotope Composition of Cyclone Mekunu Rainfall, Southern Oman

Müller

Friesen

Weise

et al. 2020

Water Resources Research

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“…This may lead to inaccuracies in the input data thus to the inability of the model to simulate the corresponding flashy events in stream δ 2 H. The representation of precipitation δ 2 H could thus be improved in the future by using more recent sampling techniques (e.g. Michelsen et al, 2019).…”

Section: Limitations and Way Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the truncation of travel times with StorAge Selection functions using deuterium and tritium as tracers

Rodriguez

Pfister

Zehe

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Abstract. Catchment travel time distributions (TTDs) are an efficient concept to summarize the time-varying 3-dimensional transport of water and solutes to an outlet in a single function of water age and to estimate catchment storage by leveraging information contained in tracer data (e.g. 2H and 3H). It is argued that the increasing use of the stable isotopes of O and H compared to tritium as tracers has truncated our vision of streamflow TTDs, meaning that the long tails associated with old water are neglected. However, the reasons for the truncation of the TTD tails are still obscured by methodological and data limitations. In this study, we went beyond these limitations and tested the hypothesis that streamflow TTDs calculated using only deuterium (2H) or only tritium (3H) are different. We similarly tested if the mobile catchment storage (derived from the TTDs) associated with each tracer is different. For this we additionally constrained a model successfully developed to simulate high-frequency stream deuterium measurements with about 30 stream tritium measurements over the same period (2015–2017). We used data from the forested headwater Weierbach catchment (42 ha) in Luxembourg. The streamflow TTDs were estimated in unsteady conditions by using both tracers coherently within a framework based on StorAge Selection (SAS) functions. We found equal TTDs and equal mobile storage between the 2H- and 3H-derived estimates. The truncation hypothesis was thus rejected. The small differences we found could be explained by the calculation uncertainties and by a limited sampling frequency for tritium. Using both stable and radioactive isotopes of H as tracers reduced the age and storage uncertainties. Although tritium and stable isotopes had redundant information about younger water, using both tracers better exploited the more specific information about longer ages that 3H inherently contains, and it could be even better in the next decades. The two tracers thus had overall different information contents. Tritium was however slightly more informative and cost-effective than stable isotopes for travel time analysis. We thus reiterate the call of Stewart et al. (2012) to measure tritium in the streams for travel time analysis, and emphasize the need for high-frequency tritium sampling in future studies to match the resolution in stable isotopes.

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“…CC BY 4.0 License. complex or expensive (Ankor et al, 2019;Berman et al, 2009;Hartmann et al, 2018;Michelsen et al, 2019). We therefore designed and tested a low-cost evaporation protection modification that can be used with Teledyne ISCO's 6712 Full-size Portable Samplers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technical Note: Evaluation of a low-cost evaporation protection method for portable water samplers

Freyberg¹,

Knapp²,

Rücker³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Abstract. Automated field sampling of streamwater or precipitation for subsequent analysis of stable water isotopes (2H and 18O) is often conducted with off-the-shelf automated samplers. However, water samples stored in the field for days and weeks in open bottles inside autosamplers undergo isotopic fractionation and vapor mixing, thus altering their isotopic signature. We therefore designed an evaporation protection method which modifies autosampler bottles using a syringe housing and silicone tube, and tested whether this method reduces evaporative fractionation and vapor mixing in water samples stored for up to 24 days in ISCO autosamplers (Teledyne ISCO., Lincoln, US). Laboratory and field tests under different temperature and humidity conditions showed that water samples in bottles with evaporation protection were far less altered by evaporative fractionation and vapor mixing than samples in conventional open bottles. Our design is a cost-efficient approach to upgrade the 1-litre sample bottles of ISCO 6712 Full-size Portable Samplers, allowing secure water sample collection in warm and dry environments. Our design can be readily adapted (e.g., by using a different syringe size) to fit the bottles used by many other field autosamplers.

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

Cited by 3 publications

References 33 publications

Stable Isotope Composition of Cyclone Mekunu Rainfall, Southern Oman

Stable Isotope Composition of Cyclone Mekunu Rainfall, Southern Oman

Testing the truncation of travel times with StorAge Selection functions using deuterium and tritium as tracers

Technical Note: Evaluation of a low-cost evaporation protection method for portable water samplers

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