A Department of Energy (DOE) multi-laboratory Water Cycle Pilot Study (WCPS) investigated components of the local water budget at the Walnut River Watershed in Kansas to study the relative importance of various processes and to determine the feasibility of observational water budget closure. An extensive database of local meteorological time series and land surface characteristics was compiled. Numerical simulations of water budget components were generated and, to the extent possible, validated for three nested domains within the Southern Great Plains; the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement/Cloud Atmospheric Radiation Testbed (ARM/CART), the Walnut River Watershed (WRW), and the Whitewater Watershed (WW), Kansas A 2-month Intensive Observation Period (IOP) was conducted to gather detailed observations relevant to specific details of the water budget, including fine-scale precipitation, streamflow, and soil moisture measurements not made routinely by other programs. Event and season al water isotope (delta 18O, delta D) sampling in rainwater, streams, soils, lakes, and wells provided a means of tracing sources and sinks within and external to the WW, WRW, and the ARM/CART domains. The WCPS measured changes in leaf area index for several vegetation types, deep groundwater variations at two wells, and meteorological variables at a number of sites in the WRW. …

An important technique used to characterize field emission is the measurement of the emitted current against electric field (IxE). In this work we discuss a procedure for obtaining IxE data based on multiple approach curves. We show that the simulated features obtained for an idealized uniform surface matches available experimental data for small anode-cathode distances, while for large distances the simulation predicts a departure from the linear regime. We also discuss the shape of the approach curves for large anode-cathode distances for a cathode made of carbon nanotubes.