Austria has a lot of bank holidays, especially in spring and especially in May (6 days!!). On top of that I took three holiday days to go to Venice next week... To summarize, because of holidays and sickness, the last month of this blog is one of few working days, indeed.

 

However, today is normal. Apart from making some minor improvements and adaptations in a code for processing data files, I got the sensor issue (mentioned last time) solved. More sensors were not to be found, but fortunately I can afford to order new ones. The deadline for sending material is passed since some time already, but these few items I can even bring in my normal luggage.

 

Ahead of me in the nearest future now, before August when we leave to Samoylov and thereafter Abisko, is to plan for the expeditions and to finalize the project I presented partly at EGU, namely to identify and estimate problems with soil moisture retrieval in areas of permafrost that is possibly related to seasonal water dynamics.

 

There is also some tasks for the PAGE21 YR team that needs to be ready and done before the field season. Currently, we are considering the usefulness of protocol templates for harmonizing sampling procedures of various kinds in field and would want to bring this up for discussion at the YR workshop in september. As I am currently trying to get an overview of data available for validation of remotely sensed soil moisture (for my project) and temperature (notably for Catherine Ottle, LSCE), I think that such template protocols may be quite handy.

I look forward to reading some fresh blogs that take over for the summer soon here from our partners!

 

Best regards,

Elin