The
night of February 27-28 was wonderful observing weather for the lidar
team. A thorough cleaning of their optics had significantly boosted
their laser power, and they measured from 10:30 pm through until nearly
4:30 am. At 6:15 am, met-tech Mike launched an extra ozonesonde for
them; this would allow the lidar ozone profiles to be compared to sonde
ozone profiles measured both before and after the measurements.
Unfortunately, as soon as it was launched the ozonesonde stopped
returning ozone data - but we'll try again at the next available
opportunity!
The nice weather continued into the day. Up at the lab, the temperature
was -26C, with very light winds. A few scattered clouds near the
horizon were a welcome change from the thick haze of the previous few
days, allowing pretty good FTS measurements throughout the day. PARIS
managed 40 measurements, simultaneously with the alternating
measurements of the DA8 (15 measurements, and fairly well behaved for a
change!) and the Bruker (14 measurements).
In the UV-Vis quarters, Mareile and Tom worked on the SPS and MAESTRO
data analysis. The first couple of day's data had shown favourable
zenith-sky data comparisons between the UT and PEARL GBS instruments,
so Cristen and Clive began the task of installing the sun tracker. By
the end of the day, the PEARL-GBS had been dismantled and removed from
the hatch, and the tracker was in place under the dome - though not yet
operational. Stay tuned for the update on this tomorrow!
The evening sonde, on a Raven balloon launched by Bonnie and Mike, was
a picture perfect launch. While the sonde was traveling skywards, many
of the team made the most of the small station gym. The laughter and
pop music made exercising sound much more fun than it should be!
Otherwise, it was a pretty quiet evening. The sonde made it just 11.8
hPa (29864m), taking the win from Clive for the first time, and making
me the winner!