7 March 2011
If only we were cloud physicists...
The low pressure system that parked itself over Eureka the past couple of
days left some snow and strong winds resulted in snow drifts along the road
to the PEARL Ridge Lab today. This morning the team assessed the snow drift
situation and decided to stay at the weather station until Robert, the Heavy
Equipment Operator, cleared the road. The wait allowed the team to have
lunch at the station for a change! With three working days left in the
intensive phase of the campaign, our dedicated team stayed a bit later than
normal (past dinner!) to finish the work that needed to be done.
While the team is busy working hard on the ground, the vortex is developing
into a more traditional circular shape at the 550K theta level. Eureka is
nearly at the center of the vortex now. The lowest ozone values
(approximately 250 DU) remain centered over Greenland, immediately east of
our site. Sunrise measurements could be sampling this low ozone air mass.
Today was another day of no solar absorption measurements by the FTSs due to
thick clouds and blowing snow. Joseph took the time to start on the laser
sampling ghost tests required for the NIR measurements with the Bruker
125HR. Since PARIS-IR was also not able to measure today, Lin used the time
to analyze the cell and background spectra recorded earlier in the campaign
and compare his results to that of previous campaigns.
Cristen and Xiaoyi spent the day with the PEARL-GBS. Cristen refocused the
PEARL-GBS for the third time and conducted resolution and stray light
testing. Xiaoyi finished the analysis of PEARL-GBS resolution and stray
light tests. By the end of the day, the PEARL-GBS started to take ozone/NO2
zenith-sky measurements (finally!).
The SPS and Brewers are working happily and Volodya has finally pinpointed
the problem in the software that was freezing the SPS laptop every night.
Akira at EC has fixed and recompiled the software so hopefully that will be
the last change in the software during this campaign.
Since ground-level winds were calm this evening Jane and John launched a
Raven balloon. It managed to reach 7.6 hPa or 29683 m.
After a long, hard day, the team settled in to watch a movie this evening.
However, they were not impressed. The team officially declared it the worse
movie any of them has ever seen. Some accomplishment!
Felicia