Eureka dropped below -50 °C overnight. This was the subject of much excitement, and many pictures were taken. It warmed to -46 °C later in the day. Outside PEARL the temperature was -35 °C mid-day and the afternoon wind chill dropped below -50 °C. PEARL was cold inside the lab, measuring a maximum temperature of 15 °C. Two space heaters were found, which helped a bit. Keeping PEARL warm enough to work has been challenging. Pierre and Volodya spent some time fixing the baseboard heater in the kitchen at the RidgeLab, which seemed to help.
Joseph and Dan were able to take only two mid-infrared measurements with the Bruker due to cloudy weather conditions. Debora was able to take 5 spectra with PARIS at high gain levels. Debora had a look
at them and believe she will be able to retrieve O3, HF, HCl, but not HNO3.
This morning in the UV-Vis lab, Xiaoyi conducted a series of resolution tests for the UT-GBS. Once these were complete, the UT-GBS was moved back to the UV-Vis lab mezzanine. It is currently taking zenith-sky measurements with the 0.1 mm slit. After carefully examination of the PEARL-GBS data, Xiaoyi discovered it has only been operating in Zenith-sky and direct sun modes. No MAX-DOAS measurements have been taken during last four days. Xiaoyi took manual PEARL-GBS MAX-DOAS measurements this afternoon, and it did so without any trouble. Later, PEARL-GBS was placed back to combination mode again. Xiaoyi discussed possible reasons with Cristen, who has considerable experience with the GBSs. Her ideas were tested; however, Xiaoyi has not yet discovered the cause of the difficulties. He plans to return to this tomorrow. Xiaoyi has also finished analyzing NO2 data for both the UT-GBS and PEARL-GBS.
Volodya discovered MAESTRO's power cable was slightly off the connector; fixing that made the instrument run again. Volodya also collected schematics for the Brewer data cables so he can fix communication problems observed between the computer in the weather office and Brewer 192 outside.
Over at 0PAL, Emily installed a new neutral density filter in the water vapour channel. Chris took 24 hours of CRL measurements. Emily continues to work on making her computer speak to the instrument remotely. In other 0PAL news, the E-AERI is offline. Zen, currently in Toronto, has contacted ABB Bomem. The problem is software related (a corrupted configuration file). Zen is waiting for ABB Bomem to provide a solution, which is expected to take a few days.
Today's ACE ozonesonde flight occurred at 18:16 and reached an altitude of 30,902 m and 7.6 millibars.
In the evening, Debora discovered a passion for Wii Sports. Volodya, Joseph, Debora and Emily played a spirited series of canoeing, Frisbee golf and fighting events. Late in the evening, Dan gave beginner guitar lessons to Joseph and Emily.