The intensive phase team for the 2020 Canadian Arctic ACE/OSIRIS Validation Campaign departed from Toronto's Pearson Airport early in the morning of Thursday 20 February. The team flying north was comprised of Kristof Bognar, Tyler Wizenberg, Beatriz Herrera Gutierrez, Ramina Alwarda, Ali Jalali and Ellen Eckert from the University of Toronto, Tom McElroy from York University, and Pierre Fogal, PEARL Site Manager. They will join Alexey Tikhomirov from Dalhousie University and CANDAC Operator John Gallagher who have been in Eureka for the pre-campaign phase operations.

Following a brief layover in Calgary, the team arrived in Yellowknife shortly after two o'clock local time on Thursday afternoon. During their overnight stay in Yellowknife on Thursday evening the team got lucky and saw the beautiful aurora on their way back to the hotel after dinner on February 20.

On the morning of February 21st, they left the hotel around 7:30 AM local time and boarded the charter plane (ATR-72) in time for a 9 AM departure. The weather was pleasant and they made it smoothly to Resolute Bay by around 12:30 PM local time, where a considerable amount of cargo was unloaded and the plane was refuelled. The team used the time to stretch their legs and check out the posters and explored the main building.

They left Resolute Bay around 2:30 PM local and arrived safely at Eureka airport at 5:15 PM local time, well after sunset. Eureka had close to 1.5 hours of sunlight today, with the Sun rising at 12:15 AM and setting at 1:45 PM. The hours of Sunlight increase noticeably from day to day over the duration of the campaign. (We encourage you to check out the article on "Eureka's dramatically changing "sunlight" on our blog if you are curious to learn more about this.) When the team arrived the temperature at the Eureka weather station was -37°C (-51°C with the windchill).

After a delicious dinner at 5:30 PM, the team had their safety meeting with the station manager, Scott. They then spent the rest of the evening settling in, and unwound over the Raptors game and some pool to recharge for their first day at the PEARL Ridge Lab on Saturday.

The team is looking forward to the first day of measurements with the instruments on site. This is particularly exciting for first-timers Ramina and Beatriz who will start their hands-on training with returnees Kristof and Tyler. Tyler and Beatriz will be operating the Bruker-125HR and the EM27/SUN, while Ramina and Kristof are responsible for the UV-visible instruments (UT-GBS, PEARL-GBS, SAOZ and Pandora). Ali will be working with the DIfferential Absorption LIDAR (DIAL), which takes measurements during the night. The Weather Station staff will be launching daily ozonesondes, weather permitting.

Tom will be re-installing the Sun Photo Spectrometer (SPS) at the Ridge Lab after some repairs made during the fall. Alexey is dedicating his time to the CANDAC Raman Lidar (CRL) at 0PAL and train Ali on the DIAL.

Pierre is in charge of the labs and taking care of the team's well-being. Ellen will keep you up to date on everything that is going on up north, with the help and input from the entire team.

Cheers,
Ellen Eckert
[on behalf of the 2020 Canadian Arctic ACE/OSIRIS Validation Campaign]