ATom-2 RF06 10 February 2017 Christchurch - Punta Arenas
Our sixth research flight travelled back in time from Christchurch, New Zealand to Punta Arenas, Chile! We left Christchurch at 8am on the morning of February 11th and arrived in Punta Arenas at 2am on the morning of February 11th. Between time zone changes and flying east at high latitudes, we gained back the day we lost arriving in Fiji.
We had originally planned to leave CHC on Feb 10th but strong cross winds made landing in Punta Arenas a risk the pilots weren’t allowed to take. So 90 minutes before take off, we scrubbed our first flight on ATom and trudged back to the hotel. We have been very lucky that no flight was delayed during ATom1 and Christchurch was a nice please to be delayed for a day this time.
On this flight we saw a faint but persistent signal of African fires throughout the troposphere. We sampled up into the stratosphere too. Except for some CO2 drawdown over the ocean, this flight was quite similar to the southern flight on ATom1.
The southern most point of our flight over the southern ocean was successfully spent looking for icebergs when not sampling the stratosphere. This photo was taken by Eric Ray, NOAA.
Overall we had a great flight and the 2am landing, 3.30am hotel breakfast, 5am bed, wasn’t as difficult as last time!
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