Sustainable Insights          

In the world of sustainable building, green roofs are becoming more popular in new construction and renovation projects. The investment in covering a roof with soil and plants can pay off through mitigating storm water runoff, lessening the heat island effect, and offsetting interior heating and cooling costs.

Nicole Goldman, owner of ‘g’ Green Design Center, a Massachusetts-based company specializing in green building materials, recently installed an experimental green roof on her home located in Woods Hole, MA. Goldman’s green roof is covered with a layer of synthetic and natural drainage layers, soil, and a variety of low-maintenance plants.

To monitor conditions on her green roof, Goldman uses Onset’s HOBO U30/GSM Remote Monitoring System to track air temperature, humidity and soil moisture. When the water content in the soil drops below a specific level, the system sends an alarm notification to activate an irrigation system. Additionally, the data that the logger provides helps Goldman identify which plants thrive under what conditions.
Live data from Goldman’s green roof can be accessed here.

Relative humidity levels are often ignored in homes despite the fact that unsuitable levels can be unhealthy, increase heating and cooling costs, damage building components, and affect comfort levels.

Research has shown that high-relative humidity levels also support the growth of dust mites, molds and bugs that can lead to increased allergy symptoms and reduce indoor air quality (IAQ). However, little to no measured data is available on actual indoor humidity levels in homes across the United States.

Concerned about the impact that relative humidity has on a building’s performance, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development paired up with Steven Winter Associates, Inc. (SWA), an architectural and engineering research and consulting firm, to gather temperature and humidity data in more than 50 homes across the country.

Three different regions are being targeted for the study – the warm, humid southeast, the cold northeast and the Pacific Northwest. To complete the study, household characteristic data will also be collected during the initial site-visit to the home, including occupancy levels, insulation levels, equipment efficiencies, envelope leakage and duct leakage.

To monitor temperature and humidity levels, SWA engineers selected HOBO® U12 data loggers from Onset.
The battery-powered devices will measure and record humidity levels around-the clock – even during power outages – and accompanying HOBOware® Pro software will convert the data into time-stamped graphs that can be displayed on a PC or Mac.

The data collected from this study will support efforts already underway by the ASHRAE Standard Committee 160P on “Design Criteria for Preventing Moisture Damage in Buildings” and others to develop moisture modeling tools and related technical standards. These models and standards will help improve a home’s performance by minimizing conditions associated with high moisture levels. Test homes for this study are currently being identified, and most initial site visits and data logger installations should be complete by the beginning of this summer.

A recent article in Building Operating Management Magazine discusses the tremendous energy savings opportunities that exist in small buildings (less than 100,000 square feet). In particular, it mentions HVAC and lighting as the two areas that comprise the majority of energy use and represent the biggest opportunities for energy savings.

Here at Onset, we’re using our own energy monitoring products to monitor electricity consumption and other parameters in our 40,000 square foot facility on Cape Cod. In particular, we’re tracking kilowatt hours and air temperature in various sections of the buildings, and in a very short period of time we’ve learned a tremendous amount about our own energy usage patterns.

Live data from one of the monitoring systems can be accessed here.

Onset’s TidbiT® temperature data loggers are helping researchers understand the effects of water temperature conditions on the fish population in Colorado’s Bear Creek.

Karen Christopherson, a volunteer researcher for Evergreen Trout Unlimited, has been using TidbiT loggers for the past several years to monitor rising water temperature conditions. “We are monitoring the stream temperatures in order to show that temperatures vary significantly,” explains Christopherson. “At times, temperatures exceeded the EPA mandated temperature limits for cold-water fisheries. We had noticed a fish die-off in 2000 and 2002, during high water temperatures.”

In order to prove their case that water temperatures were rising, and prompt action by the EPA, state, and the local agencies, Christopherson and her team placed the loggers in various stream locations to monitor temperature conditions at an hourly rate.

“So far, we have succeeded in getting cooperation of state and local agencies to help the stream. This benefits not just the trout, but all other wildlife, as well as the community. It all started with our Trout Unlimited group gathering temperature data with the TidbiTs in order to prove our point – that stream temps were too high,” concludes Christopherson.

Onset’s HOBO® water temperature data loggers are helping U.S. National Park Service researchers understand the effects of water temperature on coral reef health at the service’s field station in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. More specifically, researchers are using the data loggers to establish a link between elevated water temperature over time and coral bleaching, or the whitening of coral due to the loss of life- supporting algae. Coral bleaching – a phenomenon that has been linked to global warming in recent years – causes coral to become colorless, weak, and vulnerable to a variety of environmental stresses.  [Read More]

Related links:

: Coral reefs in trouble, scientists warn http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/07/08/decliningreefs.ap/index.html

Onset’s TidbiT® temperature data loggers are helping researchers understand the impact of water temperature on the survival and growth of oysters along New England’s coast.

Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) are studying five strains of New England oysters bred for disease resistance or chosen from disease resistant stock. These strains are grown alongside one another at four sites throughout New England.

John Murt, a researcher at the Marine Biology Laboratory at WHOI, has been using TidbiTs to monitor temperature conditions at all of the growout locations. “Prior to using the loggers, our team would take monthly field sampling trips to each site to record environmental data as well as growth and mortality of each oyster strain,” explains Murt. “Without the data loggers, we would only have a single monthly water temperature recording instead of the daily samples we collect with the loggers.”

The loggers allow Murt and his team to record water temperatures year round without having to rely on someone being in the field collecting data manually. “With temperature being the driving factor of water-borne bacteria, the data set provided by the loggers is essential for us to better understand when the conditions are right for these bacteria to impact either oyster populations or oyster farms,” says Murt.

According to Murt, similar research for Quahogs will start this summer. Three strains are currently being grown in hatcheries and will be seeded into growout patches in local harbors.

“The manpower saved by deploying data loggers means that we get a much better data set for a lot less effort. This is a win-win situation for everyone,” concludes Murt.

This past April, a team of polar ice scientists trekked to the Canadian high Arctic for a two-week expedition near Ellesmere Island to study the condition of the ice shelves and related ecosystems in this barren region.

Three scientists — Derek Mueller of Trent University, Luke Copland of the University of Ottawa and Andrew Hamilton of Laval University — traveled to this remote territory to continue an ongoing International Polar Year study.

Due to warmer climate conditions in the last 20 years, ice shelves along Ellesmere’s northern coast that have been attached to the shore for thousands of years have been breaking apart affecting this ecosystem.

To help shed light on why large chunks of the Arctic ice have been breaking-up; the team chose a HOBO® weather station with Iridium satellite interface to gather real-time environmental data. The system was deployed on the Serson Ice shelf and is the most northerly automated real-time weather station in the world.

As the arctic landscape continues to change, volumes of freshwater from deep sea inlets previously dammed by the ice shelves are being pumped into the ocean. These physical changes are affecting the habitat of aquatic microbial communities existing below the ice that play a significant role in the Arctic ecosystem.

It is not clear how these ecosystems will adapt to current and projected climate change as this region is difficult to access and has not been well studied. However, scientists are confident that the collected data will provide them with insight on how environmental conditions are affecting the Arctic’s ecosystem.

Related links:

: Ice sheet breaks loose off Canada http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/07/30/canada.arctic.ice.ap/index.html