The team saw another Arctic Hare during the drive up to the Ridge Lab today. We stopped to take a couple photos since there was finally sunlight in the morning!
Over the weekend, temperatures at Eureka were -42°C and winds were calm. On Saturday, temperatures at the PEARL Ridge Lab were around -35°C with a windchill of -54°C due to winds, which were gusting 40 - 60 km/h. The winds subsided by the time the team arrived at the Ridge Lab on Sunday. The windy weather left a couple of small snow drifts they punched through in the truck. On Sunday, temperatures at the Ridge Lab were around -33°C.
In the PEARL Ridge Lab's IR lab, Dan took 18 MIR measurements with the Bruker on Saturday morning before clouds prevented further measurements. Winds were also a concern, as they reached 27 knots by late morning. Dan then conducted an HBr cell test (auspiciously on Pi Day). By mid-afternoon the cell test was complete, and the sun emerged from behind the clouds. An additional 6 MIR measurements were taken before the sun was again concealed by clouds. He also installed anti-virus software on the (new) Bruker computer. On Sunday, Dan took 58 MIR measurements with the Bruker and continued working on a revision of the Bruker's SOP document.
On Saturday, Sebastien took 23 measurements with PARIS and learned about taking cell measurements with the Bruker. On Sunday, he took 22 measurements with PARIS.
UT-GBS, PEARL-GBS and SAOZ all took measurements nominally Saturday and Sunday. Since the winds were low today, Xiaoyi and Paul headed up to the Ridge Lab roof to perform some work on the PEARL-GBS tracker and optics. Xiaoyi and Paul tried to place a small round diffuser inside the telescope, but they could not open or life the telescope tube enough to do this work. They decided against moving the telescope out of the shelf since it is still -35°C outside, and the fibre bundle could crack. Instead, they placed a large square diffuser on top of the telescope. With this diffuser in place, the signal level reaching the instrument should be good all year round. They attempted to affix it to the telescope, but the available tape will not work at such low temperatures reliably. Xiaoyi hopes it will not move during windy days.
Also while on the roof, Xiaoyi and Paul made adjustments to the optics feeding into the tracker camera. Dan monitored the camera's image and made adjustments to the tracker's position from inside (using the radio to keep in touch with Xiaoyi and Paul). Xiaoyi hopes to set up the PEARL-GBS tracker for active tracking. The tracker camera is saturating with the current configuration. They will need to add a neutral density filter in front of it, as is done with the Bruker's tracker camera. The GBSs are not yet ready for active tracking, but there has been steady progress towards this goal.
Since Xiaoyi installed one of UT-GBS's diffusers in the PEARL-GBS system today, he had to place another small round diffuser inside the UT-GBS telescope. This avoids saturation during MAX-DOAS measurements. He will analyze the resulting spectra tomorrow to ensure this change does not affect the measurements.
On Saturday, Paul restarted the SPS computer because it showed a boot device error in the morning. The computer came back up normally. On both Saturday and Sunday, he cleaned frost off the SPS window.
The team left the lab a bit early on Saturday due to high winds. Blowing snow filled the surrounding fjord and valleys in a visually dramatic scene.
The last ACE ozonesonde flight was launched at 6:15 pm (local time) on Saturday and reached an altitude of 30,061 m (8.3 hPa).
In addition to the campaign website's photo page, there have been regular highlights and photos from the campaign posted to the @CREATEArcticSci Twitter account. If you are interested, take a look!
On Sunday evening, the Eureka Weather Station celebrated St. Patrick's Day. It was scheduled early to help all staff participate. There was Irish-themed music, snacks, and decorations.