26 February 2011
The wolves are back!
We're still in the -45C range here at Eureka. Up at the Ridge Lab, the winds
made -30C feel like -50C. Fortunately, the overcast clouds did not overtake
the sun on the horizon which led to a full day of measurements.
We are currently sampling the vortex at Eureka. There were some interesting
things happening with the vortex today. Total ozone on the Russian side of
the pole is as low as 250 DU with temperatures in the same area around 185K.
It may be the right conditions for heterogeneous chemistry on PSCs, though
we can't confirm PSCs at this point. The vortex continued elongating today
and has begun to shift in a counter-clockwise direction.
In the FTS lab, we took advantage of the sun from around 10:30 this morning
until it set at around 3:30 pm. The Bruker 125HR and PARIS-IR measured
through some haze. Joseph and Rodica obtained 49 MIR solar spectra manually
and plan to switch to automated measurements as the days become longer.
PARIS-IR measured in its automated mode, obtaining 34 measurements today.
This afternoon, we noticed the sun-tracker had a shadow blocking the beam to
tracker's mirror. I investigated the problem and discovered that a
satellite dish on the south-east corner of the roof was the problem. It has
been there since 2007, but we never noticed this issue before. Since it only
occurs when the sun is low on the horizon at a specific time of day, it is
likely that there were clouds along the horizon during previous campaigns
that coincided with the timing of this issue. We expect as the sun gets
higher, it will hit the mirror from above the dish, so it will not be a
problem for much longer but we will monitor the situation.
In the UV-VIS lab, SAOZ continued to take ozone and NO2 measurements while
Cristen and Xiaoyi continued work on the focus of the UT-GBS and on data
acquisition software. Volodya spent the day working on the script to
optimize SPS observations. The Brewers are working fine in anticipation of
more measurements with the sun getting noticeably higher above the horizon
every day. Tomorrow, Brewer #192 will be installed at the weather station.
There were no ozonesonde flights tonight but we're looking forward to the
ACE flights to start tomorrow.
The Eureka wildlife has finally graced us with their presence! As we waited
for dinner, we were told of a sighting of the wolf pack down at the airport.
So we hopped into the truck after dinner and headed over to see them. For
safety, we stayed in the truck but still had a great view! It was a first
sighting of the wolves for Lin, Joseph and Xiaoyi. Maybe we'll see some
muskoxen next?
Felicia