Today brought windy weather to the PEARL Ridge Lab for Friday the 13th. Winds were typically between 30 and 55 km/h with gusts as high as 70 km/h. The blowing snow created a visually interesting Arctic scene outside. The air surrounding Eureka was filled with blowing snow for much of the day, likely brought in from across the North Pole. Sunlight was scattered significantly, and snow swept across the valley between the ridges. Temperatures in Eureka were -38°C. Temperatures at the PEARL Ridge Lab were around -31°C (though with a windchill of -50°C). It was also cloudy.
During a period of time when winds were reasonable, Paul and Dan went to the roof to check on the instruments (and take a few photos). Everything looked good. Despite the wind, the road between the lab and Eureka remained clear.
In the PEARL Ridge Lab's IR lab, Dan and Sebastien took 22 MIR measurements with the Bruker. Sebastien took 39 measurements with PARIS.
Dan was finally able to turn on the Bruker's calibration light sources this morning. It appears that the problem affecting the calibration sources has been resolved. Following advice from Gregor, a Bruker engineer, Dan manually reset a switch which triggers three relays in the source compartment. Power has been restored and they appear to be operating normally.
With the source power issue resolved, Dan and Sebastien restarted the source cooler. Paul helped them clear air blockages from the pump lines. With the cooler operating well, and the sky not looking favourable for solar measurements, they successfully ran an HCl cell test using the NIR source. Dan showed Sebastien how to change the Bruker beamsplitter. During the cell test, the source cooler's cover was kept off to enable careful monitoring for leaks, but none appeared. Dan's patching of the hole in the cooler's heat sink tubes is holding well.
Jonathan is working on improving the coalignment of the Bruker / Community Solar Tracker system. By monitoring the daily trends in the solar line shifts retrieved from this year's Bruker data he aims to quantify and correct a small (< 200 arcsecond) offset between the line of sight of the Bruker and the center of the sun.
Xiaoyi happily reports that the UT-GBS, PEARL-GBS, and SAOZ continue to take measurements nominally.
Paul cleared frost off the SPS window this morning, as is his usual routine. The instrument continues to operate nominally. Paul also put the SPS computer on the network to enable the data to be backed up and transferred south and adjusted its time.
Today's ACE ozonesonde flight occurred at 6:15 pm (local time) and reached an altitude of 27,898 m (11.1 hPa).
This evening, Paul, Mike, and Dan watched a 3-hour George Strait concert, "The cowboy rides away". It was likely more country music than Dan had ever experienced.