The 2015 ACE/OSIRIS Validation Campaign Team arrived in Eureka safely on Wednesday evening. Flights from Toronto (Saskatoon for Paul) on Tuesday went smoothly. Paul even snuck out late on Tuesday night to see the Northern Lights! Strong headwinds caused the team's flight from Yellowknife to Eureka (via Cambridge Bay and Resolute) to take longer than usual, but was otherwise uneventful. Xiaoyi, Paul, and Dan are experienced team members. Sebastien, a new U of T Ph.D. student, is joining the team for the first time. While the Intensive Phase team has just arrived, substantial work at PEARL has been underway for weeks already, with a very active pre-campaign phase.
Three weeks ago, Tom and Zahra flew into Eureka to set up the SPS instrument after a three day weather-related delay in Yellowknife. They tested SPS and its tracker in the UV-Vis lab and brought it up to the PEARL Ridge Lab's roof. They discovered quickly that two of the SPS suntracker's sensors were broken, leaving the tracker unable to calibrate itself. After a day of effort, they attempted to commence normal measurements from the roof. Next, they discovered a DOS operating program was interfering with the commands SPS was sending to the tracker. Tom and Zahra ran out of time while troubleshooting the issue, but will continue to work on the issue back at York University. In the meantime, Paul and Mike (the CANDAC operator currently on site) will keep an eye on SPS and correct tracking issues as they occur.
Also during the pre-campaign, PEARL's Principal Investigator, Jim Drummond (Dalhousie University), and research associate Alexey Tikhomirov (also at Dalhousie University), worked on multiple projects. They were able to return the Millimeter Cloud Radar to operational status, tested the Aerosol Mass Spectrometer, and re-started the ozone DIAL lidar. The DIAL has not operated for several years. It still requires further work, but it is producing data ñ a significant step forward! Jim also worked hard on maintaining and upgrading PEARL's communications infrastructure, which everyone working at PEARL will benefit from immensely.
The newly arrived team is looking forward to getting measurements under way for the intensive phase of the ACE/OSIRIS Arctic Validation Campaign!