On Saturday and Sunday the majority of the team went up to the PEARL ridge-lab where their instruments are currently housed. Temperatures during both days were well into the -30's and persistant clouds prevented solar measurements from being made. Over the weekend there was about 5 and a half hours of sunlight per day. The team however did get a treat on Sunday afternoon, as they returned from the PEARL Ridge Lab they encountered a small herb of musk ox grazing by the side of the road.
Over the weekend Kristof unpacked and set up the PEARL-GBS instrument in it's new location on the IR lab mezzanine, and then performed calibration tests to maximize its performance. The other instrument Kristof is associated with, the UT-GBS, has been performing well since February 15th and did not need his attention.
Paul unpacked PARIS-IR and with some help from Erik and Sebastian managed to get PARIS set up on its bench. Ensuring that PARIS was properly levelled proved to be a time-consuming challenge, but soon enough it was properly positioned, and the optics for the globar and solar measurements were aligned with less effort. Paul spent the rest of the weekend working on ways to backup PARIS in order to mitigate any chance that past issues might recur and taking the first PARIS test measurements.
Gurpreet spent the weekend setting up the SPS instrument with its suntracker and extensive testing showed the two worked together without issue. He is now starting work on the MAESTRO computer in order to setup the required underlying architecture for implementation with the suntracker and SPS. Gurpreet hopes to get the all the components up and running and up on the roof by Tuesday.
In the IR lab, Erik and Sˇbastien started with maintenance of the Bruker 125HR spectrometer. On Saturday they cleaned the seals of the various compartments as well as the scanner rods. With the help of Pierre, Erik and Sˇbastien took measurements of the laser signal amplitudes at different optical path differences. On Sunday due to the cloudy conditions they performed HCl cell tests.
Alexey and Ghazal went to the Ridge Lab only on Saturday morning. There they did a quick review of procedures for operating DIAL. On Saturday night due to cloudy conditions, no measurements could be taken. The DIAL is completely operational at the moment and they are waiting for a clear night in order to start making measurements.
Finally Emily was the only member of the Intensive phase team to not visit PEARL as her instrument is located at the 0PAL site. She visited the CRL lidar lab within 0PAL on Saturday and Sunday to perform seasonal laser and lab maintenance and to begin lidar measurements in all UV channels. While there she located the cause of some water leaks from the Green laser, and aims to repair the holes in short order.
ACE/OSIRIS ozonesonde flights have not started yet.
Overall the weekend has been busy but people are settling into their roles and looking forward to the next few weeks.