The team woke up to beautiful weather on Tuesday, February 24. While the temperature at the weather station was close to -40°C, it was closer to -25°C at the Ridge Lab. The team headed up to PEARL at 9 AM. There were a few clouds close to the horizon, so tracking the early Arctic spring Sun (sunrise: 11:01 AM, sunset: 2:56 PM) was challenging. Low winds made going outside quite attractive and when the team spotted a Arctic fox close to the lab they seized the chance to snap a few pictures of the curious animal. After a productive and enjoyable day the team made their way back to the weather station around 4:30 PM.
The day was partly cloudy so Beatriz and Tyler decided to run another N2O cell experiment with the Bruker 125HR, including a background measurement to see if it was consistent with the N2O test from February 22. Using the LineFit software, they found good agreement between both cell tests. Since a replacement for the Vaisala pressure sensor will arrive on the next flight scheduled for February 29, they continued performing communication tests with the Raspberry Pi to ensure that the new sensor output will be continuously logged.
On Tuesday, Ramina continued her training with the PEARL-GBS under Kristof's guidance. They performed some CCD focusing tests and obtained preliminary resolution results for testing purposes. Tomorrow, they will finalize these tests. Kristof also worked on some Pandora communication issues to ensure that the Pandora team can communicate with the instrument.
On Monday evening, Pierre took Ali and Alexey up to the Ridge Lab where they turned on the power supply of the DIAL and started running the lidar. Around 1:30 AM some clouds appeared and at approximately 2:30 AM light snow set in. Ali kept an eye on the snow which ceased at 4:30 AM. He then realigned the laser and let system run until sunrise.
Tuesday went well for Tom and the SPS. There were no problems, and the instrument is collecting data which Tom started to analyze. The results are encouraging and Tom is looking forward to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) amounts increasing with longer hours of sunlight. This will improve the signal to noise ratio which would allow him to better assess the performance of his updated NO2 retrieval code.
The team is working well together and they are using their time to ensure everything is ready for the first day with good measurement conditions. As the length of the day increases, so will the quantity and quality of observations.
Cheers,
Ellen Eckert
[on behalf of the 2020 Canadian Arctic ACE/OSIRIS Validation Campaign]