The ACCACIA team – or at least a subset of them – are back in the field. We don’t have the FAAM 146 aircraft on this campaign, but the BAS Twin Otter is back in Longyearbyen, and the BAS research ship the James Clark Ross is on its way north to make surface measurements.
The aircraft team in Longyearbyen this time round consists of Tom Lachlan-Cope, Russ Ladkin, Amelié Kirchgaessner, Alex Weiss, and Vicky Hamilton-Morris, all from BAS along with Al Howland the pilot, and Robert Metcalf the aircraft mechanic; also Ian Brooks, Barbara Brooks (Leeds) and James Dorsey (Manchester). We arrived late on Friday night, and spent the weekend settling in, unpacking, and installing instrumentation on the aircraft.
This morning (Wednesday) we conducted a shake-down flight to makes sure all the instruments are working – most of them are, though there are a few issues that need sorting out. Tomorrow is looking good for a first science flight.
We took a picture from the cockpit showing the turbulence probe mounted over the windows. This measures the turbulent airflow in the atmosphere, which coupled with measurements to temperature and humidity fluctuations, allows the vertical turbulent transport of heat, moisture, and momentum to be measured.
Image credits: Dr Ian Brooks.