Is March 3rd a magical day...

Michael left for the lab a bit later than usual because there was cloud overhead. It cleared up and he was able to make a full night of measurements in the later part of the evening.

Tom and Clive took the red Brewer outside this morning and got it working again. We were a little later arriving at the lab because of the time it took. It was -46 C at the station this morning and it was -45 C at the lab. There was a little wind but it was enough to make it unpleasant to be on the roof. Annemarie and I cleaned off both the DOAS and SAOZ dome windows in as little time as we could manage.

There was cloud on the horizon but it was clear above. This brought hope to the FTS lab. Maybe we would not hear "Man of constant sorrows" today. There were good observing conditions with thin haze throughout the day. Richard M. and Paul were able to measure through the entire filter set and Keeyoon got 16 sets of measurements with PARIS.

SPS and MAESTRO continued zenith sky measurements today. MAESTRO also took direct Sun observations. Jennifer and Annemarie continued working on their data analysis.

The journalists and Jim and Heather flew in at about 10 AM this morning. They did their orientation at the station and then came up to the lab after lunch. They were given a tour of the lab and took footage of the scenery indoors and out. Tom and I did interviews with Nathan Vanderklippe from Global Television and Lee Sellick from CBC TV. They took some pictures of the FTS and DIAL labs. Waub Rice from the Weather Network will be coming up to the lab tomorrow to do some inside filming and interviews. Paul spent much of his day making trips up and down between the station and the lab. I am not sure if "chauffeur to the press" was in his job description. Maybe it was in the other duties section.

Jim seemed to have packed his luggage with more treats for AStrO/PEARL than clothes! We have a new laser printer (one which was manufactured in this millennium), a kettle with auto-shutoff (very important for us absent minded scientists who cannot wait around for our tea water to boil) and other assorted goodies. It was like Christmas morning when Jim opened up his luggage - though usually you do not have wait for your presents from Santa thaw.

There was a lot of excitement around the Raven launch at 23:15 UTC. The Weather Network and Global got footage of the launch but the CBC team had left their camera at the lab for interviews after dinner. The ozonesonde reached a height of 7.7 mbar and Michael came closest with a guess of 7.5 mbar.

After dinner, the Global and CBC teams returned to the lab to see the DIAL in action. Michael fielded questions on camera and ran the laser for the journalists. They spent some time outside, watching from afar, to see if they could see any evidence of the UV beam. Heather was very excited to experience the Arctic first hand. She spent her time looking for wildlife (she did see two arctic hare from the truck on the way home tonight) and was thrilled to find that the North Star is (almost) directly overhead at Eureka!

Best regards,
Kaley.