3 March 2011
Clear skies, quiet flights and northern lights!
Today was a perfectly clear day in Eureka. Finally we're back to the weather
we need for some great measurements! It was -40C with light winds and ice
crystals at the weather station. Up at the Ridge Lab, temperatures reached
-22C by the afternoon. Atmospheric pressure at the lab is also rising so we
expect the clear sky days to continue for the infamous March 4 (day 63)!
For those of you unaware of the phenomenon that is March 4, I'll fill you
in. Every year on March 4 (or day 63, considering leap years) the weather
is clear. No matter how many cloudy days there have been up to this point,
we can always measure on March 4.
Along with these clear skies, the vortex appears to be stalled in the same
position it has been in for the last few days. The only major change has
been that it appears to be stretching out its oval shape. This means Eureka
is continuing to remain well within the vortex. In fact, it has stretched
so far past Eureka that it is now over most of Nunavut, much of northern
Quebec and is reaching as far south as the southern edge of Hudson's Bay!
There was quite a bit of activity last night and today, as is always the
case when the produce flight comes in. A couple of members of the team left
Eureka today, which lead to a cozy ride up to the Lab and back (6 people +
bags + box full of lunch + 1 truck = safe, but tight!). Despite the
temperatures at the lab being 18C warmer than the weather station, the team
was too busy with their toys to go for a walk today, but hope to do it
sometime soon.
In the FTS lab, Lin and Joseph ran the instruments for approximately 6 hours
today. A bit of haze in the morning didn't stop them from record lots of
spectra! PARIS-IR recorded a total of 44 MIR solar spectra today while the
Bruker 125HR recorded 52 MIR and 25 NIR solar measurements, a grand total of
77 solar spectra for today.
In the UV-VIS lab, Xiaoyi finished installing the UT-GBS and ran some
instrument tests. We set it up to take zenith-sky ozone/NO2 measurements at
the end of the afternoon. With the arrival of parts, Cristen and Xiaoyi
installed the CCD in the PEARL-GBS and worked on integrating the CCD into
our software. Meanwhile, SAOZ continued to take measurements.
SPS also continues to work well and Volodya is closing in on the computer
freezing mystery. The script modifications helped somewhat, but last night
the SPS laptop froze again. The good news is Volodya is not going anywhere
for another week and will have time to play with the software some more. The
Brewers are operating as expected and if the good weather holds we'll have
some interesting observations at low sun, which is now at 3 degrees above
the horizon at noon.
The ozonesonde flight went very well this evening. James and John had a
picture perfect launch and the balloon reached 7.1 mbar before bursting.
Great job guys!
Now on to the "quiet flights and northern lights" segment! Rodica and I
started our journey home today by heading to Yellowknife on the outbound
produce flight. We left at about 10:30 am with somewhat strong winds
expected in Resolute. But, by the time we arrived, they had died down
leading to a nice landing. After a 20 minute stop, we got back on the plane
and headed straight to Yellowknife. Since there were clear skies in
Yellowknife when we arrived at 3:30 MST, we decided to stay up tonight and
search for northern lights.
For those of you who know me, you know that I have only seen northern lights
once in all my trips to the Arctic. And that one time really shouldn't be
counted as they were faint and had little activity. Tonight, ladies and
gentlemen, it finally happened! I finally saw real northern lights and it
was spectacular! Rodica and I braved the cold for about an hour while
entertained by the dancing lights in the sky.
Felicia