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August 17, 2021
AVIRIS is in town
By Marc Simard
AVIRIS-NG on the runway after landing
AVIRIS-NG made its way from Virginia to New Orleans today. The crew landed safely after taking a detour around some weather. AVIRIS-NG will have its first Delta-X fall campaign flight tomorrow. You can follow them live as they fly over the Atchafalaya basin at 8:45am (local time).
AVIRIS-NG will first fly the priority Water Quality lines while the ground teams collect water samples and spectrometer data. Then AVIRIS-NG will move on to collect the vegetation lines covering the Atchafalaya basin.
AVIRIS-NG flight lines
There were 3 teams in the field today: the ADCP (JPL), Island (U.Texas + Caltech) and Water Quality (Boston U.) teams.
The Boston U. water quality team in their 'banana' boat
JPL’s Michael Denbina pulls the boogie board on which the ADCP stands with a GPS antenna
The Water Quality team met with the JPL team on the water today as they crossed paths. The WQ team went to CRMS 2568 (the forested sites) and collected 6 stations with ‘trace’ measurements to characterize small scale variability in sediment concentration. The ADCP (JPL) team collected several transects along the Wax Lake Outlet. The ADCP instrument measures the flow of water in the channel.
Flood wall that protects Morgan City
Just a side fact: The Wax Lake Outlet is an artificial canal that was built in 1942 to protect Morgan City against floods by diverting the Atchafalaya River.
While the UAVSAR flights have been delayed until next week, the AirSWOT radar will have its first Delta-X fall campaign flight on Saturday over the Atchafalaya. Field teams will be collecting simultaneous in situ data for cal/val. The Delta-X team will use the Delta-X water level gauge network to provide channel-island connectivity during the delayed UAVSAR flights.