Snowpack water entering the embankments was estimated for lysimeters at Rio Blanco in the spring of each year just after the ground thawed. The water content of the embankment in late fall was subtracted from that recorded just after spring thaw, and the total difference was applied as a storm event of over four hours. After simulating the Rio Blanco 24-hour continuous climatic data set for 2 years in the ESL, extreme rainstorm and freezing cycles were applied over the ESL waste embankments. These experiments evaluated change in the rate of water movement through the embankment under different conditions. The ESL can produce rapid changes in temperature and relative humidity over a wide range of temperatures because air is exchanged 40 times per hour while being passed through cooling, heating, and steam-generating cycles.
Control becomes more difficult near the temperature extremes.
The light quality is proportioned to be adequate for plant growth. Different numbers of lights come on and off to represent sunlight cycles from dawn to dusk. The distribution of raindrop sizes is similar to that of runoff-producing storms in the midwestern United States. Initial Results Experiments in the ESL have already shown that results of small-scale simulations in the laboratory are not entirely applicable to the actual environment. For example, the movement and storage of rainwater in waste embankments were different from what was expected based on bench-scale results obtained in 1986.