It
was another night devoid of measurements for the night shift, as the
winds that had kept us chilled in the lab brought with them too much
blowing snow for the lidar. Nonetheless, they kept busy back at the
station while the rest of us slept. By the time the day crew got
back up to the lab, the winds had dropped to around 10 knots, and the
ambient temperature was a little warmer at -32C.
For the direct-sun-viewing FTS instruments, conditions were much the
same as yesterday, with clouds and thick haze near the southern
horizon. Fortunately there was still enough sunlight to operate!
Between the sun rising above the cloud at around 10:30 am, and sinking
back into it at about 3:15 pm, 38 PARIS, 13 Bruker and 9 DA8
measurements were made (the smaller number of DA8 measurements being
due to a few minor glitches through the course of the day).
In the UV-Vis lab, all instruments were working nicely. Clive continued
work on his sun tracker, while the rest of the team spent the day doing
preliminary analyses of their data.
Back at the station it was a little colder at -45C, with a light wind.
Mareile and Cristen decided to watch the sonde launch, then head up to
the airport for a walk. They dutifully signed out, picked up a radio
and can of bear spray and dressed very warmly. Unfortunately the
safety catch on the bear spray had somehow fallen off, and, while still
in the boot room getting ready, we saw proof of just how far that bear
spray would go! For those of you who have never come across bear
spray, it is a last resort in case a polar bear gets within about 4
meters of you. You point the aerosol can at the bear's face, remove the
safety catch and pull the trigger... and the bear is nicely coated with
pepper spray. Whether this distracts the bear, or just annoys him is a
frequent discussion topic, but so far no-one has had to use one up here
to find out. What Mareile and Cristen could tell us was that it cleared
their noses! Armed with gloves, scrubbing brushes and soap, they did a
fantastic job of cleaning away all the pepper - giggling the whole time!
Meanwhile, Bonnie launched our ozonesonde aboard a second Totex
balloon. It was a perfect launch, and we could hear the
unwinding-dropper (used when the winds are a little stronger) dropping
for a long time as it climbed towards an impressive 5.9 hPa (34539m)
termination height.
If anyone is interested in seeing the ozone profiles measured by the
sondes, I have added them to the "Latest data" section of our website.
Note that this is preliminary, un-quality controlled data! The
temperature profiles from all of the radiosondes launched this month
(again un-quality
controlled) are also on the site. You can clearly see the difference in
temperatures from the beginning of the month (when the polar vortex was
overhead) and now (when it is well away from us).