Campaign logbook
Contents
Campaign logbook¶
Thursday 9th October¶
Due to bad weather at all site, no flight was planned for today. But the perspectives of flying over Madrid the next day was brightening the day. Analysis of weather forecast, flight conditions, plume simulation, feedback from previous days kept the team quite busy!
Analysis of EM27/SUN measurements performed the previous days at the sites in Madrid offered some insight on the typical signals expected at these locations. When the wind was blowing in the good direction, from the city towards the spectrometer locations, a clear enhancement of XCH4 was captured (about 60 ppb, well seen between 11:00 and 13:00 UTC (13:00-15:00 local time). A plume well seen on the CH4 mixing ratio measured by the Picarro onboard Gerfaut Dynamic WT9. This type of signal should be easily captured by the active instruments onboard the ATR42.
Analysis of Madrid measurements over the first days of the campaign. Left: CH4 mixing ratio measured by the Picarro onboard Dynamic WT9, with a clear enhancement South West of Madrid along the wond direction. Middel and right: time series of the CH4 columns measured by the 2 EM27/SUNs showing, for the same day as the aircraft measurement enhancement of 60 ppb at both sites.
Unfortunately, some bad news arrived late in the morning, resulting in no fewer than three briefing meetings being held: a flight restriction over Madrid was received, allowing for only one of the three aircrafts to fly at a time. Since Vulcanair P68 carrying GHGSat-AV was already granted permission to fly on Friday morning as part as another ESA project, and that the weather forecast was bad for the rest of the day, it was decided to cancel the preparation for a coordinated flight over Madrid.
Next day will thus be devoted to flying over Fos-sur-mer, thanks to the excellent responsiveness offered by the French CER.