The
population of Eureka got up to 45 today. It is definitely starting to
feel a bit crowded, with meals requiring a couple of shifts if everyone
wants to sit down to eat, and lots of people in each bedroom. We
continue to be impressed by the flexibility of the station staff, who
just seem to take 10 or 40 extra people, unscheduled overnights by
pilots grounded by weather and multiple flights at all hours of the day
in their stride. In addition to the Rangers/DND group that has
been in town for a few days now, we have a team involved in the UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and now a team from Telesat,
who are here to look after one of their antennas that blew down in a
storm shortly before we arrived.
Up at PEARL, however, it is feeling much more empty! We had nice
weather today, though the thick haze near the horizon continues to
disrupt the FTS measurements. Cristen was able to install the new
memory that Dean bought up for her on Wednesday's flight, and also
returned the PEARL-GBS computer to its pre-MAX-DOAS, pre-tracker
settings using a ghost image made last summer.
While this is very frustrating, we hope it will at least let the
instrument operate. I have my fingers crossed for her. PARIS and the
Bruker both operated with their respective automated modes today, and
were able to collect many measurements, even with breaks for the
weather and a little trouble-shooting for the Bruker detector-selector
motor.
Emily and Bernard have been getting great DIAL data through the nights,
running from dusk until the dawn eliminates their signal. They
generally sleep through the day at the lab, and come down with us for
dinner before returning for the night-shift. They are both really
pleased with the amount and quality of the data they have been able to
collect this year.
Back at the station, Sublimation Baseball Part 2 took place
simultaneously with a great Raven ozonesonde launch. As with the
previous baseball attempt, the balloons failed to break, and the
baseball game turned into more of a soccer/baseball cross with hard
frozen balls in the calm -45 C conditions.
We'll make sure to bring water balloons, rather than party balloons, for next year.