On Tuesday March 13th, the campaign team’s last full day in Eureka, the temperature at the Eureka weather station hovered around -38 degrees all day, while up at the PEARL Ridge Lab the temperature remained around -35 degrees. The streak of bright, clear skies we’ve had unfortunately ended today as all throughout the day light snow fell, which prevented solar measurements from being made in spite of the nearly 10 hours and 35 minutes of sunlight expected. Despite the overcast skies, the campaign team managed to make full use of the day, ensuring that everything should continue to run smoothly in the extended phase of the 2018 campaign.
The cloudy conditions allowed Erik and Sébastien to perform a series of N2O cell tests to test the effect of the aperture alignment performed on the Bruker FTIR. They are currently processing the results of the cell tests and comparing to previous N2O, HBr and HCl cell tests. As the cell tests we're running, Erik and Sébastien spent their time packing the alignment kit, tidying up the IR lab, and backing up their measurement data.
Kristof compiled a new inventory of all the spare parts and testing equipment for the GBSs, and then cleaned up his corner of the labs. Both GBSs have been operating without issues during the campaign, and Kristof will continue taking measurements during the extended phase and beyond.
Throughout the day Paul checked on the operations of SPS and SAOZ and found them to be behaving as expected. At 11 o’clock he reset the SPS and suntracker computer, and once again checked that everything was in order for his departure. Paul backed up the data recorded so far to a USB drive. Finally he left SPS running overnight, and barring unforeseen circumstances it will continue operations throughout the extended phase of the campaign.
This morning John and Xin visited the two snow sampling sites located 5 km west of the station. John collected the samples this time, in order to familiarize himself with the task. He quickly realized that there is a need for proper gloves when handling such small tubes. Back in the 0PAL station, Xin and John re-bagged the samples and marked them for lab analysis. They then moved the 4th snow sample containment box from 0PAL to the cold vestibule area of the main station entrance, where it would hold the last 300 samples of snow at an appropriate temperature. Xin spent the rest of the day cleaning out his stuff from 0PAL. As this is the last full day in Eureka, Xin wanted to express his gratitude towards all the CANDAC members, but in particular John, Pierre and Peter, who helped to make the snow sampling work successful. Xin was happy to report having collected over 1200 snow samples from 6 sites over the three weeks and expressed a desire to return to further his studies in such a wonderful place.
The campaign team had a very busy evening, starting right as they left the Ridge Lab. On the way back to the weather station the team stopped by the sign denoting the 80 degree latitude line for a special unveiling ceremony. Over the past year the University of Toronto Scarborough campus has been working on a scale model of the solar system, dubbed the “Solar Walk”, which aimed to represent the solar system on a one-to-ten billion scale, with signs denoting planetary positions as they would have been during the day of Canada’s confederation. While the nine planets, along with the Sun itself, all fit comfortably on the Scarborough campus, an additional sign was created for Proxima Centauri b, the nearest planet to our solar system. This last sign was sent up to Eureka, and was finally unveiled this afternoon, which makes this Solar Walk the largest of its kind in the world, spanning over 4000 km.
After the unveiling of this new sign, the team went down to the airport to welcome the pilots and plane that would be bringing them to Yellowknife tomorrow. Following dinner the team watched the last ozonesonde that they would be around for, then headed off to finish packing for their departure. The rest of the evening was spent socializing with the weather stations staff we had gotten to know over the past few weeks, and making sure we were all ready to leave in the morning.
Cheers,
Paul Jeffery
[On Behalf of the 2018 Canadian ACE/OSIRIS Arctic Validation Campaign Team]