On Tuesday, February 26th the weather at the Eureka weather station hovered around -42 degrees C. Up at the PEARL Ridge Lab, it was -43 degrees C but wind speeds reached 17 knots, bringing the windchill so if felt like -52 degrees C. It was a beautiful, sunny day with clear skies throughout. Today we had a total of 5 hours and 13 minutes of sunlight, which the team used to its fullest. The team hopes that these sunny conditions continue so that solar measurements can continue to be made as more instruments come online.
In the IR lab, Sebastien and Tyler spent the day running N2O and HBr cell-tests, as well as background measurements with the Bruker 125HR FTIR spectrometer, and the cell tests were then analyzed with Linefit 14.5. They unpacked the alignment kit in preparation for a full alignment of the instrument tomorrow. Sebastien also set up the pressure sensor on the new Bruker PC.
Meanwhile in the UV-VIS lab, Kristof checked the UT-GBS and the PEARL-GBS in the morning. Both instruments had been started remotely before the campaign, and both are currently taking measurements. For the rest of the day, Kristof assembled the new ECCC Pandora spectrometer in the lab to double check the setup procedure, as well as to ensure that the instrument is operational. The Pandora will be installed once the wind conditions are more favourable to enable work to be done on the roof. Unfortunately, SAOZ is currently offline due to a faulty connection between the instrument and the power supply.
Alexey continued his repairs of DIAL laser power supply, and spent some time explaining its operation to Ali who will be assisting in its measurements when it comes back online. Ali then accompanied Xin and John while they went out to collect snow samples. Xin spent much of the morning setting up his snow sampling instruments at the 0PAL station. In the afternoon, with help of John and Ali, he carefully selected three snow sampling sites and successfully collected 24 samples while enduring air temperatures below -40 C degrees. Eureka has much less snow this year than last, presenting a challenge for Xin to get needed snow samples for his chemical analyses. Xin will need to pay extra attention to the quality of the snow, and has to decide if a new sampling site is needed to avoid the collection of soil-contaminated samples. Near the end of the day, Ali walked with John down to the SAFIRE station to check on meteor and wind radar as well as radiometer.
Tom spent the day at the PEARL Ridge Lab unpacking the solar tracking system for his SunPhotoSpectrometer (SPS), and checking over all of the parts in preparation for installation on the roof of the lab. This year marks the 16th visit to Eureka for the SPS instrument as part of the ACE/OSIRIS Validation Campaigns. The SPS was originally designed to fly on the Space Shuttle Columbia with Canadian Astronaut, Steve MacLean - which it did in 1992 - but it made its most significant science contributions as part of the NASA ER-2 high altitude stratospheric chemistry research program through the 1990’s, and as the heritage instrument for the design of the ACE-MAESTRO instrument on SCISAT. Tom hopes to have the whole system up and running by tomorrow (weather permitting). Additionally, Tom’s Brewer Spectrophotometer is on the roof of the Ridge Lab, and is making measurements of ozone total columns as well as SO2 in the UV band.
At the day’s end, the team enjoyed a wonderful dinner together made by the Eureka Weather Station staff, and then later sat down to watch some TV to unwind after a long day of work.
Cheers,
Tyler Wizenberg
[On Behalf of the 2019 Canadian Arctic ACE/OSIRIS Validation Campaign team]
* Instrument Status *
Bruker FTIR: Offline (cell measurements)
EM/27 SUN FTIR: In transit to Eureka