The sun rose over the Sawtooth mountain range as the team reached the Ridge Lab this morning. Sunlight continued throughout the day. Clouds were minimal, and restricted to near the horizon. Temperatures have become a bit colder in Eureka, which is now enjoying -44°C. Visibility was an impressive 24 kilometers. Outside the PEARL Ridge Lab, temperatures were relatively warm thanks to the temperature inversion, at -24°C. The sun set while the team drove back to the Eureka Weather Station for dinner.
The Polar Vortex has been interesting this year. Eureka is once again showing itself to be a valuable location for measurements. PEARL has been beneath the vortex and on the edge over the last week. This year's campaign measurements are well positioned to contribute insights into ozone depletion chemistry in the Arctic.
In the PEARL Ridge Lab's IR lab, Joseph and Dan began the day by filling the Bruker and PARIS with liquid nitrogen. Meanwhile, Jonathan started the suntracker remotely from Halifax and successfully set it up for measurements. This was a great step towards remote measurements. Further tests and preparations for remote operation will be made throughout the coming week.
With the tracker running and the sun clear of clouds, Joseph and Dan took a full day of solar measurements in the IR lab. Joseph and Dan took 77 MIR measurements with the Bruker. Dan took 49 measurements with PARIS.
The new IR Lab suntracker has been working very well. During previous campaigns, the input optics for the instruments would need to be adjusted throughout the day. Joseph and Dan would have to frequently adjust and watch the old suntracker. Today, they took a full 7 hours of continuous measurements (9 AM until 4 PM) and the beam of sunlight remained reliably on the internal apertures of the instruments without adjustment. That is success!
On the Ridge Lab roof above the UV-Vis Lab, Sophie and Paul removed the dome, re-leveled, and re-calibrated the suntracker. Paul also sighted the Brewer.
While working inside the UV-Vis Lab, Sophie noticed there was a time delay between the suntracker computer and the local server time. Paul fixed it, but Sophie will talk to Yan soon about how often the time synchronization is performed.
Down at 0PAL, the CRL took continuous measurements for 33 hours, starting from the night of March 5th until this morning. Chris Perro, working remotely from Dalhousie University, operated the lidar remotely to do overlap tests for few hours. The CRL was then took routine measurements for the remainder of the day.
On our way back from the Ridge Lab, the team had another wildlife sighting. We saw a wolf, and took a few photos from the window of the truck. It was exciting to see such a magnificent animal! Hopefully we will encounter hares, foxes, or muskox before we leave in two weeks.
Today's ACE ozonesonde flight was launched at 6:15 PM (local time) and reached an altitude of 30 927 meters (9.2 hPa).
Tonight Dan added a Media page to the campaign website. We encourage you to read and share the content!