8 March 2011
The Sun has graced us with its presence
After three days of cloudy skies in Eureka, the Sun has returned to shine
brightly. Surface pressure continuously rose all night, leading to a clear
sky today. It was a balmy -20C at PEARL today which had even the seasoned
weather station personnel in awe. Down at the station, they were coping
with -41C. It has been a while since we've seen such an extreme temperature
inversion.
The day started off hazy up at the lab so the FTS measurements started at
about 10:30 and were able to measure until about 4 in the afternoon. The
Bruker 125HR recorded 69 MIR solar measurements while PARIS-IR recorded 40
MIR solar measurements. Luckily, the vortex hasn't changed significantly
since yesterday so we'll likely have some interesting results from the
spectra recorded today.
The PEARL-GBS had a shutter changed today. It also underwent some testing
of the MAX-DOAS scripts and then took ozone/NO2 measurements in the
afternoon. It was a similar story for the UT-GBS today; some testing was
performed and it then took ozone/NO2 measurements in the afternoon.
The SPS laptop is now working fine, which will be much appreciated by Ashley
and Alexei during the extended phase of the campaign. It appears that no
matter how long Volodya says in Eureka, it is only a couple of days before
leaving that everything starts working as expected 100% and no longer
requires tinkering with either software or hardware.
For a bit of fun, the team walked around PEARL in the afternoon. How could
they resist with temperatures of -20C and light winds? With only a few days
left, the team is hoping for some more animal sightings. We're crossing our
fingers!
Felicia