This morning, Tom, Emily, and Zahra departed Eureka for home, along with some of our friends from the Eureka Weather Station. This meant farewells after breakfast. After their plane left, the Ridge Lab team waited for Eureka Weather Station staff to kindly clear the road to the lab. It had been snowing. The temperature at Eureka has dropped a bit, to -36°C. Outside the PEARL Ridge Lab the temperature was -26°C.
The Ridge Lab team (now composed of Dan, Joseph, Sophie, and Paul) left for the lab after lunch. The morning had been cloudy, so the plane and road-clearing delay didn't impact solar measurements. In the hopes of seeing wildlife on route, Sham joined them. She can run the lidar remotely, and hadn't had the opportunity to visit the Ridge Lab yet. No animals or birds were seen, but Sham was impressed by her visit nonetheless. The PEARL Ridge Lab, in her words, is "awesome".
Thankfully, the sun emerged from behind the clouds for a few hours this afternoon!
In the PEARL Ridge Lab's IR lab, Joseph and Dan were able to take 13 MIR measurements with the Bruker. Dan took 8 measurements with PARIS.
Over in the UV-Vis Lab, Sophie conducted stray light and polarization tests with the mounted diffuser she had put in the UT-GBS telescope. The UT-GBS is now ready! It started to take measurements before the team left the lab at the end of the day.
Paul checked up on SPS, MAESTRO, and the Brewer today. All of them continue to take measurements without trouble.
The CRL has operated continuously at 0PAL since yesterday night. Both UV and Vis lasers are running and will be getting 24 hours of measurements today. Sham prepared a program to analyze water vapour from the lidar data collected so far.
Today's ACE ozonesonde flight was successfully launched at 6:15 PM (local time) and reached an altitude of 31 573 meters (8.4 hPa).
Today was also a great day for the team's presence in the University media. Dan's latest article about the campaign is up on U of T News, and Western University News posted a Q & A article with Emily and Sham . Check them out and please share with friends, family, and colleagues liberally! Dan will add a "media" section to the campaign website for easier access to these stories. Don't forget to check the campaign website's daily photo section . We've shared great moments from our time at PEARL.
There have also been daily posts to the @CREATEArcticSci Twitter account . Check it out for highlights and photos. You don't need to be on Twitter to see the content; you can simply visit it as a webpage.
In the evening, Dan, Paul, Sham, and Sophie went on a hike from Eureka for a couple of hours. The high Arctic, especially at night away from Eureka (or the Ridge Lab), can be an incredibly peaceful and quiet place. Make sure to check out today's photo album once it is up. We felt warm and happy, but looked frozen by the time we returned!