June 17, 2008 – Cloud Cam
Tonight as I write I have Jimmy Buffet piping through my headphones, singing me off to somewhere warm. If I squint at the snow real hard it kind of looks like the ocean and the bamboo poles might be palm trees. Then again…maybe not.
Another great day at Summit Camp is slowly coming to a close. We had nice weather for most of the day and did atmospheric studies through the night last night. During the 6:00am tethersonde launch the tail of the sensor fell off when it was at about 500 meters up in the air! We thought it was gone forever until I spotted something off in the horizon during the 12:00 launch. I decided to gather my XC skis to have a look. Half a mile from Balloon Island I ran into the tail section, sticking straight up out of the snow. I smiled at my small accomplishment, and then skied fast as I could back to the warmth of Sat Camp!
The tail section of the tethersonde ended up half a mile away from the balloon after it fell off in mid flight. Thankfully we were able to recover it.
Today I want to feature another piece of research equipment. The "Cloud Cam" does just what it sounds like it should do. It is a camera that takes pictures of clouds, although it is a little more complicated than that.
The cloud cam has a dome shaped mirror that reflects the entire sky onto a camera, or it reflects curious scientists and teachers if they get too close!
The Cloud Cam has a camera suspended over a polished mirror dome. The dome gives a "fish-eye" view of the entire sky. The camera takes a picture of the mirror, which is showing a reflection of the sky, and saves it to a computer. It takes one picture every minute so we get 1,440 pictures of the sky each day, none of which are dark because the sun is up 24 hours a day. The pictures below show a black line across the domed mirror. This black strip blocks out the sun, otherwise the whole picture would be bright white! The whole mirror rotates so that the black strip can track the sun across the sky! So, when you look at these pictures, you can tell what time of day it is by the position of the black strip. Straight up is midnight, pointing to the right (east) is 6:00am, pointing down (south) is noon, and pointing left (east) is 9:00pm. These pictures give good proof that the sun never sets. At the end of this journal is a video that you can click on to see the entire sequence of pictures for all 24 hours of June 13th. But, if you do, be patient, it might take a little while to load, after all there are 1440 pictures of the beautiful Greenland sky to load!
The cloud cam is perched on top of the Bally Building where it takes a picture of the sky every minute. The arm that extends upward is the camera that points down toward the mirror dome.
The images from the Cloud Cam are used to help understand data on the other instruments. One of Barry Lefer's pieces of equipment measures the amount of Ultraviolet radiation (the stuff that causes sunburns) that reaches the snow. If his instrument says that there was very little UV light making it to the surface, he can look at a saved picture from Cloud Cam to see if it was cloudy at that minute or if something more EXCITING was going on!
The black strip on the mirror of Cloud Cam rotates to block the sun. If the strip wasn't there the entire picture would be white from the suns rays. One can tell the time by looking at the position of the strip. Straight up is midnight, straight down is noon....everything else falls in between.
Food Update:
Lunch: Turkey club wraps, beef veggie soup, curry mushroom soup, salad and ginger cookies (made with freshly grated ginger!).
Dinner: again…had to get out the pen and write these on a napkin:
Smoked Salmon Whiskey Pasta, Asparagus Scones (you might want to read that one again!), Goat Cheese and Sundried Tomato Ravioli with Winey Cream Sauce, Asparagus with Aioli Sauce and fresh baked Italian bread. Oh yea…and tossed salad with homemade vinaigrette! (Phew…let me catch my breath!)
I think it is only fair that I put a face with the name. Below is a picture of the most important (and beloved) person at Summit Camp…Rosemary the cook.
This is Rosemary, the world famous cook of Summit Camp, Greenland. There is nobody who can cook better than her atop 2 1/2 miles of ice!
Stay Warm!!
PS. I had a few people email with the correct answer to yesterday's question. If you didn't read yesterday's journal, I'll save you the trouble: Where does the phrase, "Keep your stick on the ice" come from?