Such an interesting feeling being so unable to respond to problems. We noticed that yesterday at some point our remote atmospheric flux station had a power failure, our fuel cell was no longer charging our batteries. But everything else kept running, living off the slowly draining batteries. We could still monitor the internal temperature, along with all the other scientific measurements and saw the temperatures inside our data/power box plummet to -16C. But then, amazingly, the box started to get slowly warmer inside! Then colder again, and warmer again. Very strange because there is no real source of heat inside any longer and -25C outside would surely eventually win. In looking at our measurements it seems that subtle changes in wind direction impacted the internal temperature. But in the end, the Arctic deep chill did win, the battery voltage got low enough that our radio communications turned off….. And then darkness. We were rallying hard to get on a helicopter out to the site before it turned off completely, but weather conditions never cooperated. Those low level clouds that I like to study kept us from our rescue mission. It’ll have to wait for another day.
