Malaise begins to set in...

We awoke hoping for good measurement conditions to return. Richard B. obtained reasonable lidar measurements (despite the Moon) so we were hoping to continue this trend. However, this was not to be. The clouds rolled in as night was ending.

When we got up to AStrO, it was fairly overcast and the Moon was just a faint glow in the sky. In the afternoon, a small break appeared in the clouds and the tracker was able to lock on to the Sun. This lasted for less than half an hour. PARIS made one measurement however there was very little signal in the MCT band due to the thin cloud. The DA8 missed the narrow observation window because it did not warm up in time - the Sun disappeared just as Keith was starting his measurement. It was quite a frustrating day.

As the days have gotten longer, it appears that MAESTRO needs to be given more attention to maintain operations. Clive stayed up at lab into the evening to ensure that the instrument continued to measure through sunset and twilight. Unfortunately, it crashed overnight so it looks like Clive will have to spend tomorrow night at AStrO to make sure that the MAESTRO will continue to operate.

On the way down from AStrO to the Weather Station, Tobias showed extreme restraint in asking for only one photo stop. Since it was his final trip down from the lab, we figured that there might have been more stops requested. During the day, Clive, Hongjiang and I packed up three boxes of equipment that we could afford to live without in the last days of the campaign. These were brought down to the Weather Station and I filled out the paperwork so that they could be taken on the plane with Richard M. and Tobias.

A Raven balloon was used for the daily ozonesonde/radiosonde launch at 23:15 UTC. The maximum sonde height was 7.4 mbar (31.1 km) which is a bit less than yesterday. In his final opportunity to participate in the contest, Richard M. guessed the sonde height value exactly. This is the first time that that anyone has done this during the campaign!

This morning, it was -39 C when we left the Weather Station and a balmy -28 C up at the lab.

Best regards,
Kaley.