When I said it was white yesterday, I hadn’t yet experienced today. There wasn’t even a horizon. All day it snowed, without a peep of light through the clouds. As you can imagine, there wasn’t in much going on in the FTS lab. Just cell tests (surprise surprise). Quote of the day from Richard: “I don’t need cell measurements, I need sun!” I think I’ll move to UV-Vis… the PEARL UT-GBS continues to surprise us with its awesomeness. Somehow it was getting enough light even in this murk to be making good measurements when we arrived (solar zenith angle >96 degrees!). The UT-GBS and SAOZ instruments didn’t kick in until half an hour later, but they too got measurements through the clouds. Things were also looking good for the SPS and Maestro instruments, which made measurements from around 9am. A new macro for Maestro was also implemented today, so hopefully tomorrow they’ll be made even earlier. No news at all from the LIDAR. It too was grounded by the clouds.
Somehow though, the weather didn’t seem to slow down the wildlife. A couple of foxes came and checked us out as we left for the lab, and there were three blurs that Paul declared to be musk-ox.
The evening bought a lot of laughter in the form of Pilates… only Annemarie seemed able to keep a straight face!
Hopefully the weather will improve a little tomorrow.
Bec
P.S. Note the new "Instrument Status Summary" page on our homepage for all you instrument buffs.