Ruisdael Observatory

Project: Ruisdael Observatory
Section	ARS
Status	on-going
Start Date	2018-01-01
End Date	2028-01-01
Principal Investigator:	User:Herman Russchenberg
Short Description	National initiative for measurements of the atmosphere

Related Media

	date ᵖ	description ᵖ
		The Cabauw supersite

Project Participants

Andre Castro,Christine Unal,Herman Russchenberg,Mahaut Sourzac,Marc Schleiss,Rob Mackenzie

The Ruisdael Observatory (https://ruisdael-observatory.nl/) is a 10-year roadmap financed by NWO that aims to establish a permanent, long-term network of advanced sensors and high-resolution models for improving the accuracy of climate, weather and air quality models at regional scales in the Netherlands. The main project partners are: KNMI, TNO, RIVM, Delft, Utrecht, Wageningen, Amsterdam and Groningen. Within Ruisdael, TU Delft specializes in the observation and modeling of clouds, precipitation, radiation, momentum transport. The sensors operated by GRS can be grouped into 4 main clusters: Cabauw, Lutjewad, Rotterdam and Delft.

The Cabauw supersite

Cabauw is located in a polder area in the western part of the Netherlands, in a mostly rural and flat, agricultural area downwind of Rotterdam. Cabauw is the main site for atmospheric measurements in the Netherlands and plays a key role in the Ruisdael infrastructure. The site belongs to the Royal Dutch Meteorological institute KNMI and features, among many other things, a 213 meter high mast for vertical profiling of aerosols, clouds, humidity, temperature, wind and trace gases. Within 40~km radius, there are four other major KNMI site with synoptic weather stations, among which is the regular radiosonde station at De Bilt. Most of the Ruisdael sensors are placed on the Remote Sensing Site of Cabauw, located approximately 300~m SSE of the main tower. The Remote Sensing Site features a large suite of active and passive remote sensors for measuring clouds, aerosols, moisture and temperature. The sensors are carefully placed such as to maximize overlap and synergy between the sensors while limiting interference, shielding and blocking by the mast. The Cabauw site features 12 Ruisdael sensors: CLARA ; MARA ; IDRA ; WindCube ; CLARIO ; MARIO ; PAR001 ; PAR002 ; PAR007 ; Thies001 ; Thies005 ; MRR002. The four co-located disdrometers (PAR001, PAR002, Thies001, Thies005) are used to study and quantify the measurement errors and uncertainties between and across sensor type, providing valuable knowledge for what to expect in terms of measurement uncertainties at the other sites that only feature a single disdrometer. One Parsivel (PAR007) is installed at a height of 180~m in the mast, and is used to study the effect of wind, turbulence and shielding on DSD measurements compared to the sensors on the ground.

The Lutjewad site

The Lutjewad atmospheric measurement station, established in 2000 by the Centre for Isotope Research (CIO), is located on the northern coast of the Netherlands, approximately 30~km northeast from the city of Groningen. The rural landscape to the south consists mainly of pasture and cropland with patches of forested land with livestock dominated by dairy cows and sheep. Set up directly behind the Wadden Sea dike, the site features a 60-meter tall sampling tower, a 10-meter platform, a laboratory building, and an aerosol laboratory container. The station monitors greenhouse gases and trace gas species, sampling aerosol number, size, and composition at different altitudes. Lutjewad is part of the European research infrastructure ICOS, providing continuous greenhouse gas concentrations. The coastal location means that the site samples relatively clean marine background air in conditions of northerly winds and more polluted air masses during conditions of south-easterly and south-westerly winds. Besides being a Ruisdael site, Lutjewad is also part of the European research infrastructure ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System) labeled as class II station since 2018, providing continuous greenhouse gas concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O, and the related tracers CO and Radon. Over the course of 2019-2021, the Lutjewad infrastructure has been extended with additional Ruisdael instrumentation for measuring aerosol size number and composition as well as with cloud radar systems for cloud optical properties in the course of 2019-2021 in collaboration with the TU-Delft. The 10~m high scaffold completed in 2022 features the scanning 94 GHz cloud radar named LARA and the microwave radiometer LARIO by RPG.

The Rotterdam network

The Rotterdam network currently consists of multiple sites surrounding the bigger Rotterdam area. This part of the network is still expanding and more sites will be added to the network in the near future

• De Zweth: Situated approximately 7 km to the North West of Rotterdam, and 4~km South East of Delft campus, Zweth is a small town along the Schie river, at the intersection of the historical areas of Delfland and Schieland. The site features a Parsivel disdrometer, a micro-rain radar and a Davis weather station, placed on top of a TNO mobile trailer in the North of the town. Except for the small village of Zweth and the A13 highway approximately 600~m to the East, the site is surrounded by mostly flat, agricultural areas.

• Slufter: Located in the Maasvlakte Rotterdam, The Slufter is a large-scale storage site for contaminated sludge in the southwestern part of the Rotterdam Maasvlakte, approximately 31 km West of the city center of Rotterdam. Along the ring dike of the Slufter, several wind turbines belong to the Windpark Slufterdam are providing electricity for the region. The site features a Parsivel disdrometer and a micro-rain radar, placed on top of a TNO mobile trainer. The extreme climate conditions near the cost of the North Sea, with high winds, salt, and sand creates a very challenging environment for long-term weather observations and the sensors regularly need to be cleaned and repaired to prevent corrosion.

• Westmaas: Westmaas is a village in the Dutch province of South Holland located approximately 15 km south of the city centre of Rotterdam, south of the old Meuse. The site features a Parsivel disdrometer (since June 2022), a micro-rain radar (since June 2022) and a Davis weather station (since May 2023), placed on top of a TNO mobile container located approximately 1.5 km to the West of the village of Westmaas, in a predominantly flat and rural area.

• ErasmusMC: Situated in the heart of Rotterdam, on the roof of the Erasmus Medical Centre, this is the most urban site in the network. It currently features a Davis weather station and Hukseflux radiometer.