Today is our last day (so long as the flight shows up) at Alert station. We had a very successful day at the GAW lab yesterday and managed to get all of the large tasks completed! All of our new instruments are up and running and collecting day 🙂 Several other instruments were taken down to winter over indoors, and others will come back to the NOAA lab for calibration (to be re-installed in the Spring). It was a crystal clear day with only light winds… but still around -20 degrees C. The twilight is deteriorating with each day, and when we left the lab at 5pm it was already dark.
All of our instruments are installed to collect Arctic meteorological measurements. These include three new sonic wind measurements (two with 2D capabilities, and one with 3D capabilities that measure wind in the u, v, and w components). We were also able to fix several surface radiometer instruments that measure the amount of incoming solar energy/radiation. Five of these shortwave instruments were taken down so that we can send them out for calibration to ensure that we are getting the best possible measurement. We plan to re-install these shortwave radiation instruments in the Spring when to sun comes back up over the horizon. We brought with us three new soil instruments (two soil moisture sensors and one soil temperature sensor) to install in the data collection system (which was successful), and we will later install the sensors into the ground when it thaws. The all sky camera was brought in for the winter since the sun in no longer above the horizon, but it will also be re-installed in the spring when the sun comes up. Finally, a update to the data acquisition system was completed and successful so we will continue to receive the data that we collect. Overall, there were many tasks to be completed (including others not mentioned here), and we were able to complete or diagnose all of them… that’s a success in our book! That was a also a great experience to double check our systems and make sure we are doing everything as efficiently as possible 🙂
It has been a wonderful experience up at Alert and everyone has been so kind and helpful. The GAW lab techs were amazing and helped us with some of the installations. It was also great to tag along for their weekly instrument checks. They are very meticulous and it is comforting to know that our instruments are being checked on and taken care of by such diligent technicians!
More photos to come as soon as we have internet connections for our cameras… hopefully tonight!
All the best,
The Arctic Team
