Glacial Ridge Atmospheric Observatory

The Department of Atmospheric Sciences has established a long-term atmospheric and hydrologic research facility.

The facility is located on the Nature Conservancy Glacial Ridge Restoration Project site. The Glacial Ridge property is located about 65km southeast of UND, between Crookston and Mentor, Minnesota. The long-term goal of the facility is to deploy a highly-instrumented monitoring network to better observe and understand atmospheric and hydrologic processes. The facility provides necessary verification data for remote sensing (weather radar, satellite) and airborne measurements, and for improving atmospheric and hydrologic modeling activities.

The Nature Conservancy's long-term goal for the 24,000 acre Glacial Ridge property is a complete restoration of the land back to the natural prairie grasses and wetlands. Most of the property had been used, or still is used, for farming and ranching activities for the past 20 years. The restoration is planned for a period of 15 years with a percentage of the property being converted each year.

The Department of Atmospheric Sciences has either acquired or is in the process of acquiring a number of instrument systems that will be deployed at the research facility. The high-quality research facility will provide the infrastructure to deploy a variety of instruments to observe a variety of atmospheric and hydrologic processes. Instruments initially deployed include: a 915 MHz wind profiler (horizontal and vertical wind field, storm structure), video disdrometers (image the type, size, and number concentration of precipitation), a network of snow and rain gauges (monitor the amount and variability of precipitation at the surface), radiometers (incoming solar and outgoing longwave radiation, fraction of cloud cover), microwave radiometer (vertical observation of water vapor), surface weather station (standard atmospheric state parameters), and other support instrumentation.

The surface instrumentation will be used in conjunction with the UND C-Band polarimetric Doppler weather radar system and the UND Citation II research aircraft for focused studies on a number of critical issues. For example, cold season weather phenomena (e.g., snow, clouds, wind) have far reaching effects on society and yet in many respects are not well understood. Snowfall rates and amounts impact surface transportation and flood forecasting, but the measurement of snowfall is a very inexact science. Aircraft icing is also a serious hazard but there is no network of instruments to detect and warn of its presence. Falling snow and wind greatly reduce surface visibility but vary significantly on small scales that are currently not well forecasted. Understanding the hydrologic cycle is important for water resources management, agriculture, and maintenance of ecosystems. Atmospheric and hydrologic interactions are under-sampled in the Red River Valley and the research facility will provide a mechanism to better understand these interactions.