Two flights, two sites (sights)

The last two days brought us more perfect flying conditions so we were able to get into the air and head in two different directions from Longyearbyen. Yesterday we headed to the southeastern sea ice edge and flew a forward-backward pattern from the sea ice to the open ocean. Although the surface flow was not coming from the sea ice, we could capture a lot of nice low-level clouds over the ice, and some strong precipitative clouds over the ocean. Two drop sondes were deployed at each end of the pattern to help us to better understand the differing thermodynamic conditions. In contrast, today we set off northwest towards the sea ice edge close to Greenland. On the way, we passed over the Kongsfjorden, next to Ny Ă…lesund, and had contact with researchers there to coordinate dropsondes and radiosondes. We witnessed some snow sublimation in the area and were able to capture it whilst passing over. Upon reaching the sea ice, we again flew a forward-backward pattern, but this time remaining over the ice to capture the changing cloud cover. We already have three successful flights completed at this early stage of the campaign, what a great start! Tomorrow the conditions for flying are looking complex, but what does that matter to COMPEX? We will see..

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