Today has been eventful. The commute to the PEARL Ridge Lab required driving through many sizable snow drifts, which had accumulated due to strong winds. Upon our arrival at the Ridge Lab, the temperature outside was -37 °C, but with winds in excess of 70 km/hr there was a wind chill below -60 °C. Inside the lab, temperatures were below freezing (except the UV-Vis lab, which was 2 °C). This made for rather chilly working conditions.
In the IR lab, Dan was unable to take measurements with the Bruker due to cloudy conditions, but checked all indicator lights on the Bruker to ensure the cold temperatures were not causing problems. Everything seemed normal. Joseph spent the day at the Eureka Weather Station, and has been working on retrieving ozone. Dan also spent time catching up on report writing and web site work. Debora attempted to take cell measurements with PARIS, but PARIS would not turn on. The temperature in the IR lab was below 0 °C; Debora later found out PARIS requires a temperature of at least 5 °C to operate. Instead of measurements or calibrations, Debora converted yesterday's data to spectra and wrote a program to co-add background and cell measurements.
In the UV-Vis lab, Xiaoyi tried reconnecting the SAOZ's GPS again. As before, SAOZ did not work. He disconnected the GPS. SAOZ continues to operate normally without the GPS. UT-GBS and PEARL-GBS continue to operate fine. Xiaoyi has discovered the PEARL-GBS is unable to take MAX-DOAS measurements in combination mode because the software only permits this when the solar zenith angle is larger than 84 degrees.
Back at the Weather Station this morning, Joseph helped Volodya bring Brewer 192 inside again. It has not behaved as expected, even when isolated from the data cable problem. After a very hard reset the Brewer returned to normal operation. Tomorrow, Volodya plans to check the junction box at the instrument platform outside the weather office and hopefully sort out the data cable issue.
Due to the sub-zero temperature conditions inside the PEARL Ridge Lab, the lack of functional plumbing, and cloudy conditions preventing solar measurements, Pierre decided to bring the team back to the Weather Station at lunch time. The road conditions had worsened due to heavy winds and snow drifts. Due to the incoming produce flight, it is unlikely the Weather Station staff will be able to clear the road to PEARL to ease our commute until the plane departs tomorrow morning, at the earliest.
After lunch, Pierre and Volodya returned to PEARL and installed additional heaters. The installation was not an easy job, as some re-wiring was required. The heaters seemed to be working well by the end of the day, and the temperature in the UV-VIS and IR labs had been raised significantly, to 17 °C and 14 °C.
Today at 0PAL, Chris made measurements for several hours overnight and during most of the day. Emily swapped the water vapour channel filters again. The new short-wave pass filter she installed will be tested during measurements tonight. Emily spent time processing depolarization data, as well. In other CRL news, the long-awaited polarotor has arrived on the plane today and is warming up!
Today's ACE ozonesonde flight occurred at 18:15 and reached an altitude of 30,425 m and 8.4 millibars.