[Babase] Min_max conf call outcome - for Susan

kfenn kfenn at princeton.edu
Thu Jan 22 11:31:38 EST 2009


Hi Susan,

I wanted to catch you up on our call with Karl yesterday.  We made the 
following decisions, pending your approval:

1)  Do away with the Babase 2.0 raw Farenheit weather data 
column/records collected for the min_max records.  These records have 
already been converted to Celsius and exist in our excel sheet as such.  
Precision and accuracy documentation on them is sketchy so we gain 
little by converting the current C records back to F, storing the raw F 
records in the database, and then having Babase run a program to read 
everything as C.

2)  Do away with the "Baboon Camp A: lower gauge" records that were kept 
for ~6 months to compare the upper and lower thermometers.  I will keep 
these comparison files in a separate excel sheet, but Babase will hold 
only records for the Baboon Camp B upper gauge.  (see further notes on 
the station abbreviations below).

3)  Using an aerial photograph, Jeanne showed me the 4 approximate 
locations that temp gauge has had within the current camp.  The naming 
of these station is confusing but here is the rough outline of a support 
table we propose to incorporate into Babase (the first 5 rows).  The 
view people should use to browse the data will only show the station 
abbreviations.  We chose the alphanumeric combination to show that the 
min_max gauge has moved 4 times within the current Baboon Camp.  Can we 
get your input on the names and the proposed deletion/renaming of the 
upper and lower gauge values (see notes below)?

abbreviation 	station name 	notes
OT 	Ol Tukai 	
BC1 	Group Ranch Campsite A 	located just S of the current (2008) 
kitchen cabin within the Baboon Camp
BC2 	Group Ranch Campsite B 	located just N of the current (2008) 
kitchen cabin within the Baboon Camp
BC3 	Baboon Camp A 	located about halfway between the current (2008) 
kitchen cabin and the current (2008) weatherhawk station within the 
Baboon Camp
BC4 	Baboon Camp B 	Located ~10 m S/SW from the current (2008) 
weatherhawk station within the Baboon Camp

	Baboon Camp B: upper gauge 	this station distinction will be eliminated 
and the station will simply be "Baboon Camp B"

	Baboon Camp B: lower gauge 	These records will be removed from the 
min_max table in Babase but kept in a separate file if someone wants to 
compare.


4)  For sporatic missing times, Karl will run a little program to 
calculate the average time of reading for that month and use this to 
populate the empty field.  Where there are months or year of missing 
times ('71-'76), Jeanne proposed to fill the empty fields with 07:00.  
We will have a new column in the weather tables to indicate that these 
are estimated times.  It will be called "est. time" and be filled in as 
Y or N.

5)  The current weather tables have a rg_span column that does a 
calculation to tell the span of time between rain gauge readings.  Using 
an estimated time will created an estimated values in this column so we 
need another column to indicate where these estimates occur.  This new 
column will be "est rg_span".

6)  We need to build a "Users Guide to the Min_Max_Rain data" because 
there is a good deal of support documentation that users need to read, 
but it doesn't fit into the scope of Karl's technical documents, current 
field protocols, or data management protocols.  Any ideas about where to 
keep this (the wiki perhaps?)



I think that's all for now.
Many thanks,
Tabby

-- 
Tabby Fenn
Research Assistant

Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
401 Guyot Hall
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ  08544

609 258-6898 (Ph)
609 258-2712 (Fx)

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