And then there were 7?

Sunday mornings at the Weather Station are quiet as there is no breakfast. The campaign team members sleepily made their own breakfasts and got ready to go to the lab. We said our goodbyes to Richard M. as we left the station at 8 am. Tobias was no where to be seen as he took advantage of the opportunity to sleep in.

This morning there was little optimism for a good day of solar observations since Richard B. had not even made the trip up to AStrO to attempt any lidar measurements. The ride up to the lab was quiet but comfortable. With only 6 people in the truck, there was a lot more leg room, elbow room and even laptop room.

When we got to AStrO, there was cloud on the horizon but it was thinner than any we had seen recently. Our spirits improved when, at 10 am, the Sun climbed high enough to be tracked through the thin cirrus cloud. We continued to make measurements until 4:30 pm through the thin cloud. At this point, the haze didn't matter so much because we were finally able to make measurements! In total, the DA8 recorded 16 sets of data and PARIS made 17 sets of measurements.

Meanwhile, back at the Weather Station, Tobias and Richard M. were waiting for the weather to clear up in Resolute. There was a blizzard warning in effect with strong winds so the pilots kept delaying the flight by a few hours at a time. At dinner time, they were still in Eureka. At 7 pm, the pilots decided to load the plane to be ready just in case the conditions improved. By 8:30 pm, the last of the freight and the passengers were loaded and on their way to snowy Resolute.

Clive opted to spend the night at AStrO to make sure that MAESTRO kept measuring at high solar zenith angles. Richard B. brought supplies up to the lab so we were sure that Clive was well provisioned. We'll see how they survive the night at the lab.

The penultimate ozonesonde of the validation campaign was launched this evening. The Raven balloon carried the radiosonde/ozonesonde to a height of 7.3 mbar (31.2 km). Charlene won the "guess the height of the sonde" contest with a value of 7.2 mbar. I am not sure if you can win the contest if you leave the station before the end of the sonde flight. In this case, Hongjiang has volunteered to take the win in place of Charlene...

It was -37 C when we left the Weather Station in the morning and the temperature at the lab was -36 C. However the wind made it feel a lot worse. Hongjiang and Annemarie did not have any fun when they were checking on their experiments on the roof. The wind chill values quoted for the Weather Station were on average -53 C during the day. Brrrrr......

Best regards,
Kaley.