{"id":401,"date":"2018-08-15T20:48:49","date_gmt":"2018-08-15T20:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/?p=401"},"modified":"2018-08-20T18:14:07","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T18:14:07","slug":"the-grand-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/2018\/08\/15\/the-grand-finale\/","title":{"rendered":"The Grand Finale?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Friday, August 3, 2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The day dawned with a layer of fog blanketing the Schnur Lake area but by 7:30am the fog had lifted and we could see beautiful blue skies.\u00a0 It looked like a perfect day for a launch and comparison with the TCCON, the EM-27s and the OCO-2 satellite \u2013 a great way to cap off the road trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/20180803_070118.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>Foggy morning&#8230;. Colm is swimming out there somewhere<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/20180803_073851s.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>Beautiful launch conditions!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For starters, though, we had some complications to deal with.\u00a0 We learned yesterday that, due to a misunderstanding between the cabin owners and rental agency, our checkout date was\u00a0<em>this<\/em> morning instead of <em>tomorrow<\/em> morning\u2026.. sigh.\u00a0 With helium tanks in the Yukon, there was no way all of our equipment, our luggage and ourselves could also fit in.\u00a0 So after Tim prepped the AirCores, he and Sonja drove the analyzer rack and as much spare equipment and luggage as possible over to the WLEF tower and stored everything inside the Carbon Cycle Group\u2019s shipping container\u00a0 lab.\u00a0 Long story short, kind of inconvenient, but among the lesser inconveniences of the day as it turned out&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We drove about an hour northwest of Park Falls to our launch spot, picking up a fellow balloon launcher along the way who was vacationing in the area and wanted to join us just for sport.\u00a0 We set up, with Sonja fretting more than normal:\u00a0 this was the first time we were launching sans Jack (the communications and tracking expert) and this task had been handed off to Sonja.\u00a0 Luckily, between Oklahoma and the first two Wisconsin launches, there had been a fair amount of training &#8212; and mostly things are fine when we launch &#8212; but there are a lot of small details to remember, <em>aaaaand<\/em> sometimes wacky things just happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But things seemed to be going well.\u00a0 After a few little glitches, all the tracking equipment is working fine on the ground.\u00a0 We&#8217;ve recruited Tori to help with the release of the balloon, and the skies are blue.\u00a0 Oh wait\u2026. the skies <em>were<\/em> blue.\u00a0 (No really, you have to check out the video.)\u00a0 We were mostly set up, skies were blue, and then we started filling the balloon.\u00a0 Cue the clouds, which got darker and thicker in minutes. Because we were so concerned about which way the blustery winds were going to take the payload, no one really registered the change in sky cover. Tori pulled the ripcord and off the thing went with Colm having to sprint in a direction we weren\u2019t expecting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/H_jrkzlCSKw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We quickly packed up and hustled off toward the WLEF tower to meet some tree climbers.\u00a0 Prior to the trip, we had arranged to have tree climbers in Wisconsin \u201con retainer\u201d and so far hadn\u2019t needed their services.\u00a0 Since today was our final launch of the road trip and we needed to start the drive back toward Colorado as soon as the work was done, we decided to have the tree climbers on hand for the chase: Robert Berg from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.arborjack.com\/\">Arborjack<\/a> in Birchwood WI and Louise Levy, owner of <a href=\"https:\/\/levytreecare.com\/\">Levy Tree Care<\/a> in Duluth MN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unlike the previous Wisconsin launches, the payload seemed to be following the prediction fairly well.\u00a0 And then, in something only vaguely hinted at in the forecast, the skies let loose and started dumping on us.\u00a0 Thunder, lightning, heavy rain&#8230;. what?!\u00a0 The TCCON crew texted to say they\u2019d closed up shop.\u00a0 When the balloon was around 75,000 feet, the iMet stopped working.\u00a0 Shoot.\u00a0 Some nervousness on Sonja\u2019s part, but we still had the Iridium and the ADS-B transponder to help track the balloon&#8230;until the Iridium started sending strings of zeros instead of the relevant latitude, longitude and altitude.\u00a0 Crap.\u00a0 Thankfully, the ADS-B was still reporting, but at the tower we were only getting the lat\/lon showing on the map and not the altitude (okay, the reality is we <em>could<\/em> have seen the altitude, but that was one of the details Sonja didn\u2019t remember right at the time, so for the purposes of the story, we didn\u2019t have altitude).\u00a0 The Northwoods are not a hotbed of cellular coverage, so we drove back into the town of Park Falls to get an internet connection, which allowed us to see the altitude of the ADS-B on various flight tracking websites, and sat in the pouring rain waiting to get a final GPS position of the payload after landing\u2026. which, by the look of the topo map, appeared to be in a forested wetland.\u00a0 Oh, goody\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-2 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/4_20180803_134526-e1534354525484.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>Not exactly what we were planning&#8230;.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/5_20180803_152134c.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>It&#8217;s only 1\/3 mile away&#8230;. how hard could it be?<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It could have been worse.\u00a0 We followed a series of good dirt roads and by using the dog tracker found that we could get within about a third of a mile of the payload.\u00a0 It was very densely wooded, but there was a small trail of sorts at the beginning we were able to follow.\u00a0 This soon devolved into unstable, wetter ground, rotting trees and foot-grabbing sink holes.\u00a0 (Muck boots would definitely have been the footwear of choice.)\u00a0 Robert and Louise had it especially tough because they were carrying awkward tools and ropes.\u00a0 We zigged and zagged our way towards the payload, quickly giving up on keeping our feet dry, and stopping frequently to scan the trees for a bright red parachute or the bright orange bags that hold the tracking devices.\u00a0 While 0.3 miles doesn\u2019t sound very far, it certainly felt like a long time before Colm called out, \u201cFound it!\u201d\u00a0 Despite the tall trees, the AirCores were sitting neatly on the ground, though the rest of the flight string and the burst balloon were strung overhead through some trees.\u00a0 We probably could have eventually gotten everything out of the trees without our arborists, but as they were there with tools, this made the extraction much easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-3 wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/6_20180803_152446s.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>This is the dry part of the walk<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/IMG_1912.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>Hey, look!  AirCores!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/8_20180803_161651s.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>And the rest of the payload&#8230;<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/9_20180803_162229s.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>If you&#8217;ve carried the tools out, you may as well use them<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/10_20180803_162501c.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>Final untangling task<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/11_20180803_163413.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>Wet and muddy, but feelin&#8217; good.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Colm navigated a slightly longer, but higher and drier, path back to the road and then we zoomed back to the tower.\u00a0 Tim got the analysis going while Colm and Sonja completely unloaded the car to do the careful Tetris repacking of everything and downloaded the data from the various payload pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-4 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/12_IMG_1916.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>Measuring the last AirCore<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/13_IMG_20180803_192709s.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>Data download<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2018\/08\/14_IMG_20180803_192239s.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption>And vehicle upload. Oh sure, <em>now<\/em> the skies are clearing&#8230;<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the end, this final launch was kind of a bust.\u00a0 Data files were sparse, and because of the heavy cloud cover, there was no comparison data from the TCCON, the EM-27s or the OCO-2 satellite. Did we mention that our shoes were soaked and muddy?\u00a0 However, this whole adventure does make for a comical story and a memorable way to end the field project.\u00a0 And in the end, Colm was able piece together the flight path with bits of data from each of our FOUR different trackers.\u00a0 For those who are wondering, Jack later diagnosed the initial iMet problem as having come from a damaged connector. And the rest of the issues probably came from a lightning strike on the way down, which took out most of the GPS units on the payload all at the same time. So, this probably can be categorized as the aforementioned &#8220;sometimes wacky things just happen&#8221;. <br \/><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Around 7:30pm, we hit the road, disappointed because we had missed all the Friday Night Fish Fry opportunities along our path (the locals stop eating dinner <em>early<\/em> around here!).\u00a0 As the clock approached midnight, Sonja bailed out of the road trip in St Paul so she could fly to Chicago in the morning for a friend\u2019s wedding.\u00a0 Tim and Colm got a handful of hours of sleep and then blasted the 14 hours back through Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and, finally, Colorado on Saturday.\u00a0 Phew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, August 3, 2018 The day dawned with a layer of fog blanketing the Schnur Lake area but by 7:30am the fog had lifted and we could see beautiful blue skies.\u00a0 It looked like a perfect day for a launch and comparison with the TCCON, the EM-27s and the OCO-2 satellite \u2013 a great way&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/2018\/08\/15\/the-grand-finale\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/2018\/08\/15\/the-grand-finale\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-25 13:20:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions\/466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/aircore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}