I have surprisingly little to report today. The sky remained cloudy from start to finish, with not even a hint of sunshine to tempt us. We all headed up to the lab anyway, checking that everything was ticking along as normal then settling down to individual projects, cell tests, code changes and data analysis. It was a good chance to catch up on many things that had been put aside in favour of measurements for a few days. Tom leads the way on the analysis front, with his early analyses of the MAESTRO and SPS data looking promising.
The temperature in the stratosphere has cooled down a bit compared to the last few days, so a Raven (plastic) balloon was launched today. For those non-balloonists among you, the reason that we use plastic balloons when the temperatures are very cold in the stratosphere (<-65C) is because the rubber (Totex) balloons tend to get brittle and break lower down at these temperatures. Thus for our ozonesondes to reach the high altitudes that we’re interested in, the plastic balloons become a more sensible choice. They are, however, harder to launch and more expensive than the Totex balloons, which reach similar altitudes at warmer temperatures. Hence the decision to switch back to Totex ones when it is warmer. The launch today was a success, with the balloon reaching 9.0 hPa (30km). Tobias was glad not to lose the betting pool yet again, as he has now washed the dishes for the last 4 days!
Outside of work, I saw my first Arctic hare this morning. I didn’t get a picture (it was on the steepest part of the hill up to the lab, and if we’d stopped our truck may never have started again), but it was very white and surprisingly large. Having seen Rodica and Kim’s photos from last summer, I expected to see these hares all over the place, but it’s taken me this long to even see my first one. Mike reports seeing them most nights on his way up to make LIDAR measurements, so maybe I’ve just been looking in the wrong places. Now I just need to see a wolf!
Bec