Mural from Anchorage, AK
Hello, Jackson Osborn here. I am an Associate Scientist for CIRES, my background is in Electrical Engineering. I am here to support the deployment of the MiniFlux system and fix/troubleshoot it when things don’t go right, which we are hoping for the opposite. As Gijs alluded to in an earlier post, this is my first field deployment and let me tell you, I am very excited to be a part of this! I have never been this far north but it has always been a dream of mine. Check that one off the list!
It’s been a few days since our last post. Janet Intrieri (NOAA) and myself arrived in Anchorage, AK last week and were required to complete training before we could be allowed into the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. After a full day of training we then flew to Deadhorse, AK to rendezvous with Chris Cox and the SeaHunter flight ops team. Chris got us up to speed with MiniFlux and the happenings thereof. Our second day here we were given the green light for a successful test flight. A science flight would have commenced had the weather cooperated further. Since then, it has been pretty uneventful here in Kaparuk. We are currently on standby due to less than ideal flying weather. While on standby we have been trying to keep busy. Today we participated in training to become visual observers for UAS operations, namely the SeaHunter.
The current situation is that we are grounded due to poor visibility from fog and a storm that is inbound. While getting some fresh air after returning from the hangar, I had the opportunity to observe a rare phenomena called a fog bow or a white rainbow. Because the drop size of the fog is much smaller than rain (typically < 0.05 mm), the bright colors of a traditional rainbow are not observed. The light is diffracted rather than refracted as with a rainbow. The fog bow is observed at the antisolar point much like a rainbow. The lack of color is due to smearing of the colors from diffraction, although a reddish tint can be seen on the outer rim and a blueish tint on the inner.
Fog bow or white rainbow
The weather is keeping us grounded but we remain patient and persistent while we wait for another green light. Once we get that we will work on getting more data! Tune in next time!
