The morning of Tuesday, March 6th, began with temperatures up at the PEARL Ridge Lab near -27 degrees, which throughout the day fell steadily down to -32 degrees. At the Eureka weather station, the temperature began the day near -32 and proceeded to fall down to -35 by the mid-afternoon where it held for the rest of the day, which marks the coldest temperature we’ve had so far during this years’ campaign. Despite some ice crystals overhead and some low-lying clouds on the horizon, the sun remained unobstructed for most of the day, allowing the team to make use of the approximately 8 hours and 20 minutes of daylight that was expected.
Kristof continued the MAX-DOAS measurements with the PEARL-GBS, and he has finished updating the operational procedures and troubleshooting guides for both the UT-GBS and the PEARL-GBS.
In the morning Paul checked on how SPS had been performing overnight and found that while SPS itself continued measuring, the tracker for it had lost communication with its control software at some point during the night. The communication and power cords were getting wrapped around the tracker stand on the roof, so Paul, with the help of Kristof, removed the straps holding these cables in place and unwound them, taking the strain off the cables, before strapping them down again. This was done with the goal of reducing the frequency at which the communication port connection of the tracker would come loose, which was the cause of the problems experienced with the tracker. After restarting SPS and the tracker they both performed nominally throughout the day, not requiring any further tracker adjustments. Paul left SPS and the tracker running overnight. Paul has several ideas for ways to further secure the tracker communication connection which he will implement when the tracker and SPS are next stopped. Additionally, a check of SAOZ by Paul indicated that it continues to perform nominally.
Last night a bout of light snow disturbed the DIAL measurements. Ghazal continues to wait for clear nighttime conditions to make measurements with DIAL.
In the IR lab Erik and Sébastien used an oscilloscope to measure signals of the interferometer’s metrology laser during the early part of the morning. By the afternoon the sun had risen above the clouds and 24 MIR spectra were recorded. Before heading back to the weather station, Erik started a N2O cell test.
This morning John and Xin made their daily visit to the snow sampling sites 5 km west of the station. In addition to regular profile sampling at the two sites there, Xin collected snow samples from 5 snow holes, each about 20 cm apart, for validation. Then they moved to Ridge Lab where they collected snow samples in the valley just behind the Lab. In the afternoon, a Xin revisited the sea ice site in front of the weather station, from which he collected samples from 5 snow holes. In the afternoon Xin made snow salinity measurements in the 0PAL Lab.
In the evening the team once again watched the ozonesonde launch, which is quickly becoming something of a daily tradition. Afterwards they split off, with some focusing on individual projects, some taking advantage of the small gym at the weather station, and others making use of the rec room to play a few games of billiards.
Cheers,
Paul Jeffery
[On Behalf of the 2018 Canadian ACE/OSIRIS Arctic Validation Campaign Team]