Today has been a quiet day of routine measurements at PEARL. The temperature in Eureka was -43°C. The temperature at the PEARL Ridge Lab was -33°C, but 30 km/hr winds resulted in a wind chill of -47°C. Up until yesterday, the wind has been calm.
In the PEARL Ridge Lab's IR lab, measurements started about an hour after sunrise due to clouds on the horizon. Dan took 72 MIR measurements with the Bruker today. He also finished customizing the OPUS interface and setup the automatic transfer of files to move measurements from the new computer to the CANDAC cube (they are transferred south from there).
Also in the IR lab, Sebastien took 22 measurements with PARIS.
The UT-GBS, PEARL-GBS, and SAOZ are all working well and taking measurements. Xiaoyi is continuing to work on upgrading the UT-GBS code to include active solar tracking. He also fixed a bug in the PEARL-GBS code. The PEARL-GBS dome still has a patch of frost on its north-east side, which is preventing MAX-DOAS measurements. Xiaoyi and Paul asked Mike to search 0PAL and SAFFIRE for another heater they could hook up to the dome, but none were found. Pierre suggested they cover the dome with blankets, which they plan to do tomorrow.
Paul checked up on SPS, which continues to operate normally.
Today's ACE ozonesonde flight occurred at 6:15 PM (local time) and reached an altitude of 29,889 m (8.4 hPa).
After leaving the lab for the day, the team saw a few Arctic Hare! It's always exciting to see wildlife. Unexpectedly, Paul spotted a bird landing on the old Weather Station building while we ate dinner. He snapped a photo of it flying away, but we were not able to clearly identify it. Paul suspects it was a Gyrfalcon, which are the largest falcon species and live in the Arctic. The wildlife sightings made for a pleasant end to a quiet productive day.