ATom-2 RF09 18 February 2017 Lajes - Thule
Our ninth research flight travelled north again from Lajes to Thule Air Force Base, Greenland.
The island of Terceira is a favorite stop of scientists and crew alike. The people are lovely, the food is amazing and the sights are phenomenal! For me, it’s still hard to believe this isn’t the west of Ireland, stone walls and all! But then the sunshine arrives :)
Unfortunately all the volcanic caves were closed as it’s the offseason and one local apologized for the bad weather. If this is as bad as the weather gets, I want to retire here!
We went for a wander around the trails in the nature preserve in the center of the island. It was muddy but a lot of fun!
Our flight from Lajes to Thule saw us pick our way between two large North Atlantic low pressure regions. We flew over the high Greenland plateau and into the Cold dome of the arctic north. This is where the cold air is trapped at the surface and acts as a winter-time storage area for much of the world’s pollution. We saw high levels of pollution such as short lived hydrocarbons that would normally be oxidized quickly in warmer and sunnier regions.
During the flight we saw a lot of broken and missing sea ice as we travelled up the west coast of Greenland. Some exposed sea surface is common in the area as polynya’s form but I was surprised to see so much thin ice (the almost see through ice in this photo).
We are expecting to have pretty cold temperatures in Thule once we arrive. It will be a change from Terceira!
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