ECO-Lodges Supporting OTREC, Education, and Climate Research

Reserach partners of the ground station monitoring portion of the OTREC field
campaign have found eco-lodges to be most hospitable for hosting meteorological
and global positioning system stations.

The ground station network portion of the OTREC field campaign provided by the National 
Center for Atmospheric Research, Reserach Applications Laboratory (NCAR|RAL) and the
 National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) with support from the CIGEFE and
the University of Costa Rica completes a cross-country transect for meteorological
monitoring from the Caribbean to the Pacific. The stations primarily support OTREC
hydrometeorological research and GPS retrievals of atmospheric water vapor. 
The met. stations measure precipitation, air temperature, wind, humidity,
air pressure and soil moisture. These measurements will be used to build better data
sets for use in the WRF-Hydro modeling system during the field campaign to analyse
changes in atmospheric conditions associated with the rainy and dry periods. 
The Met. stations also support the OTREC atmospheric sounding measurements 
which look at the flow of moisture from the Caribbean across central America to
the tropical pacific.
 

One scientific motivation among many for these sites was to capture the sea-breeze 

and how it relates to convection that develops inland on theelevated terrain.  

There is a really strong gradient in elevation, the mountains basically run
down to the coast, where the ‘Jacó’ and ‘Dominical’ stations are located. 

Sea-breeze convection has a unique behavior in terms of precipitable water vapor 

which is calculated with GPS and Met. station data and in turn can identify 

convective events.

In order to create the cross-country transects the stations needed hosting locations.
At least two eco-lodges stepped up to support the climate research. 

  

Jack and Diane of theHacienda Baru Lodge are gracious hosts
of the ‘Dominical’ meteorological (Met.) station. Similar to the
John Mellencamp song,“Jack & Diane” Ewing were originally from the
American heartland (Colorado to be exact) but instead of becoming
football stars Jack and Diane moved down to Costa Rica
50 years ago and have been running the Hacienda Baru Lodge
just south of Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific coast.
Read more about their environmental interests
on their website:https://www.haciendabaru.com/

Likewise and north of the ‘Domincal’ station also along the Pacific coast,
Alvaro Lorenzo, director ofOrigenes Lodge is hosting the ‘Jaco’ Met. station.
Origenes is a sustainable holistic center.  Read more aboutOrigenes Lodge, 

and their environmental interests on their website http://origeneslodge.com/.

The beauty of clouds

Do you recognize and appreciate the beauty of clouds? We definitely do! Those in the picture are trade-wind cumulus clouds. They form over the oceans in typical, undisturbed weather conditions and usually exhibit a block-like appearance.

The first person to describe cloud forms using Latin terms such as cirrus, cumulus or stratus was Luke Howard (1772 - 1864). Back then we knew less about the troposphere, but even now the convergence patterns are very complex and challenging for forecasters and scientists to understand. The clouds shown in the picture were captured in the early morning in Limon, Costa Rica, and might be connected to the convergence line between the land breeze and trade winds.  

Clouds may be classified by form and by height. Trade-wind cumulus clouds are generally 5000–7000 ft thick at peak development and are based at about 2000–2500 ft altitude. The individual cloud usually exhibits vertical growth ending abruptly in the lower stratum of the trade-wind inversion. As with all cumulus clouds, they have flat bases, which lie at the same level. At this height, air lifted from the ground level has cooled to the dew point. Cumulus clouds do not generally rain – we were lucky there were no cumulonimbus to disturb our equipment!