Today we start our journey from Rothera to MPA in Falklands. The winds have been quite high overnight but dropped enough to leave this morning. We will be one night in MPA and back in UK early on March 10th.

The last day. Finishing packing and Alex and Timo are on gash duties. Usual list of clothing to take back, labs to be cleared and cleaned. Passports to be found. Cargo to be consigned. This year it is easier for us as all our equipment stays at Rothera ready for an early start in November.

The full map of our flight tracks is now available as a Google Earth File: here.

Polar 5 departed for Punta Arenas this morning.

Having stopped flying in time to get almost everything packed yesterday, Tom and Russ were able to spend the day doing the base cleaning duties. With good weather most of the AWI people managed trips out onto the glacier and some running on the runway although Jo and Manuel were still busy preparing their cargo and getting as much as possible flown out with Polar 5. The remainder will be taken on the final Dash-7 flight to Punta Arenas.

Jorg gave a short speech before the Saturday night meal thanking the base for their hospitality and provided the wine for the meal for everyone.

A final set of cloud probe calibrations were performed and some radiometer comparisons were repeated this morning in brighter conditions before the task of removing all the instruments and preparing the aircraft for returning to Canada was started. With all three of us working on it helped by the aircraft mechanics Bryan and Jeff by the end of the day all of our equipment had been removed and most of it packed.

The hygrometer chamber was cleaned and a meter fault was looked at on the power switch box. Tom provided Friday night beer on our behalf for the base.

The final flight today. Tom and Doug went over the Peninsula looking at clouds and the profiles on both sides of the Peninsula. On their return we did radiometer comparisons by moving the downwards looking instruments onto the roof for direct comparisons with the upward looking instruments.

In the evening, base staff were invited to come and look around both Polar 5 and AZ. Tom and Jorg both gave science talks afterwards and thanked the base for their help in the campaign.

Snow and high winds this morning so the hangar door can't be opened. Therefore no flying. Tom and Russ took the CPC down to the laminar flow hood in the Bonner lab to run a zero count on it which was fine. We also measured around 200 times more particles per volume up in our offices compared to lab air in the Bonner!

No flying all day. Polar 5 started to take their equipment off of the aircraft. Bonner Lab had an open evening.

The day of the Ronne Polynya. Russ and Alex headed off with Alan flying to Fossil Bluff where they dropped Russ to set up the GPS base station while Alan and Alex continued to fly lines over the Ronne Polynya. Conditions were good with new ice forming a resonable wind, some sea smoke and they even saw a pod of whales in the polynya. They were joined by Polar 5 direct from Rothera flying a similar set of lines.

Alan and Alex returned via Fossil Bluff to collect Russ and the base station data to return to Rothera just as it was starting to get dark and the snow showers started.

Alex headed off with Alan flying for a joint flight with Polar 5 in the Weddell Sea just after lunch time.

We aim to look at flying up until Friday 5th. Polar 5 will make their last flights on 3rd or possibly 4th. Fossil Bluff will close on 3rd. That gives us the weekend to remove all the kit and pack it ready for a Monday departure to the Falkland Islands. We all have to fit gash duty in over the weekend too.

Crosswinds at Rothera in the morning. They started to drop in the afternoon and Tom flew with Mark to do the Laser Altimeter lines over Adelaide Island. Russ flew with Steve to look further North at possible OFCAP AWS sites.

The morning started with a Tsunami alert following the earthquake in Chile. AZ was immediately flown away from Rothera. One FUST wire broken due to snow and instruments iced as no heaters enabled. Hopefully the butanol in the CPC wasnt sloshed around to contaminate the optics. Aircraft returned once the 'at risk' times were checked. We removed camera, lower radiometers and CPC for the second evacuation flight and we had a fun time up the hill. Possible small signal on Vernadsky and Rothera tide guages.

Once the instruments had been replaced in the aircraft, Russ and Tom headed over to the Larsen with pilot Mark for a joint mission with Polar 5 specifically looking at cloud layers. The layer was thinner than hoped but the measurements were completed. There was some westerly flow across the peninsula but not a fohn event.

It must have snowed fur seals during the night as this morning the runway was covered in snow and a dozen fur seals on top of it.

It gradually cleared up during the day but most work areas were pretty cloudy including preventing a cross peninsula flight, so we fitted the Condensation Particle Counter (CPC) to the aircraft for the first time having satisfied the pilots that it was safe to fly. We plumbed the inlet and exhaust to use a Rosemount inlet using a pumped air flow. Currently the LICOR has to be taken offline for access to a free power socket and to use the inlet. Data is logged as simple text on the CAPS PC.

After lunch Tom and Russ did a short test flight up into some cloud with Mark (as Doug now has the cold) and the instrument seemed to perform well. Now we just need to make some sense of the data.

Alex went for a trip down the crevasse and Tom was part of a JASPER Pub Quiz team during which he was 2nd in the biscuit eating competition!

A rather frustrating day. We planned once more a collaborative flight with Polar 5 to the Ronne Polynya. However Polar 5 was unable to make use of fuel at Fossil Bluff so planned a line starting North of the Polynya. Alex and Russ joined pilot Doug in AZ with the plan once more to drop Russ and GPS base station at Fossil Bluff on the way. However just as we were ready to start engines, Fossil Bluff called up with Fog at the skiway. We delayed another hour and looked carefully at the forecast but with no forecast of increased windspeed and the prospect of returning from the polynya towards dark and the possibility of fog we had to abort the mission.

We salvaged what we could of the day with Alex flying with Doug to a line further North in the Weddell Sea but this had quite a bit of cloud so the data will have suffered from being forced to fly higher than usual. On a better note we successfully got the Condensation Particle Counter running on base and set up a logging program for the data.

A warm, snowy start to the day but should be starting to clear later for a cloud flight.

We continue to look at the comparison flight with Polar 5 and it's looking quite good. Wind and temperature profiles match quite well. There appears to be a 0.7 deg C temperature offset in uncorrected or corrected Rosemount temperatures that we haven't resolved yet.

In the afternoon AZ and Polar 5 did a joint cloud flight in Marguerite Bay.

We finally did a zero and span gas test on the LICOR. After this two point calibration, we ran the 400ppm CO2 test air through the system and got a reading of 400.04 +/- 0.3ppm from the LICOR! We still have a significant pressure signal on the data during profiles though which we need to address.

Alex headed off in AZ mid morning for a flight over the Weddell Sea followed by Polar 5 a little later to do a joint mission. Not brilliant conditions - little surface/air temperature difference or wind.

Tom (on his silver wedding anniversary!) flew a short cloud flight later in the afternoon and we were all done by evening meal, ready to start afresh tomorrow!

Dash-7 heads North today with 15 people including the BBC film crew.

There is a cold going around amongst most of the BAS and AWI airborne scientists to varying degrees. Not sure where that came from!

Polar 5 not flying today because of a lot of cloud over the Peninsula. Three flights for AZ. Two flights before lunch. The first test flight suffered from a PC breaker tripping. The GPS worked well however. The second morning flight was really a longer test but we managed to fly several cloud legs and everything worked!

After lunch Tom and Doug headed back out with Johannes as an observer to do another cloud flight to the North of Adelaide Island which was also successful.

Strong Northerly winds at Rothera today. The morning was spent getting the aircraft attitude system (AHRS) logged again. This can be used as a backup to the GPS attitude system but hasn't been logged correctly all season. We returned to using spinning disks rather than the new solid state disks and it worked. We collected process timing details and this will probably show that the write speed of the solid state disks could not keep up with our data rates.

After lunch Tom headed off with Ian at the controls as it was Doug's day off. They looked at clouds on the west of Adelaide Island but the GPS was playing up again so they came home earlier than expected. Polar 5 did not fly today.

After this flight we took the JAVAD GPS unit out and re-flashed the firmware in all 4 boards and also swapped to the spare sync. box which provides the power for the GPS ready to test fly tomorrow.

Today we attempted a co-ordinated flight with Polar 5 to the Ronne Polynya. This involved dropping off Russ and Pilot Ian at Fossil Bluff to set up the kinematic base station while Doug flew Alex over the polynya to overnight at Sky Blu. However the GPS was very intermittent going down to Fossil Bluff so we decided to abort and return to Rothera although Polar 5 continued.

On the return flight, GPS was much better! We flew through a meso-scale structure on the way back to Rothera. Back at Rothera we checked the antenna baselines by running the systems with the aircraft levelled. There was only a slight change to the figures. Folk night at Rothera.

Some better weather today on the East side of the Peninsula. Both Polar 5 and AZ headed off over there. Polar 5 is mainly concentrating on radiation over the Larsen Ice Shelf and AZ with Alex is heading out over the sea ice for flux measurements. GPS attitude measurements were not good.

Jörg was also able to fly in AZ to see how we operate.

A short maintenance session this morning. Polar 5 had a corrupted hard disk problem from yesterdays flight and AZ had a corrupted JAVAD GPS configuration from a ground power spike last night.

Both aircraft were working and away before lunch though to fly a joint program over to the Larsen Ice Shelf and Weddell Sea ice. Timo flew with Alex in AZ.

AZ experienced further JAVAD GPS loss problems on the flight and also a corrupted CAPS disk from a power switch being knocked. Newer scripts were run into the JAVAD in the evening ready to be tested in the morning. The CAPS PC disks will also need checking.

Some better weather today on the East side of the Peninsula. Both Polar 5 and AZ headed off over there. Polar 5 is mainly concentrating on radiation over the Larsen Ice Shelf and AZ with Alex is heading out over the sea ice for flux measurements.

Jörg was also able to fly in AZ to see how we operate.

Stronger winds today with a weather front coming through. AZ required some work in the morning on an engine and avionics. Both aircraft were ready to fly by the afternoon but with so much cloud, Polar 5 decided to stay on the ground as they could not protect their turbulence probe. Tom and Timo headed off into the cloud during the afternoon with Doug once more at the controls. They encountered some icing but managed to fly through the whole cloud layer and out the top at 13500 feet with multiple layers within the cloud. A very good flight.

Polar 5 had a problem with their radiation logging computer which had to be worked on all day.

Alex headed off in AZ via Fossil Bluff to fly a traverse up the Weddell Sea from the Ronne Shelf in the South up the Weddell Sea coast North back to Rothera.

In the evening the BBC Film crew showed impressive advance footage of their Frozen Planet series.

A joint flight was planned to the Ronne Ice Front today for Alex and Russ with MASIN staging via Fossil Bluff and Polar 5 flying a round trip direct out of Rothera. By the time everything was in place it was already looking like a return in the dark to Rothera, but the final straw was when we sat in AZ ready to set off, the right hand engine wouldn't start so the mission was aborted.

Polar 5 re-planned and headed over to a cloud gap in the Weddell Sea for some low level runs over the sea ice. Russ joined the AWI scientists to learn how the instruments are configured in Polar 5 and how they conduct missions.

Meanwhile the replacement starter motor in AZ didn't go exactly to plan, so took the whole afternoon but is now serviceable for tomorrow.

Today Polar 5 headed off for a mission over the Wilkins Ice Shelf. The BBC also had two aircraft filming the break-up of the ice shelf and interviews with Andy Smith. They also filmed Polar 5.

In the morning we sorted a heater problem with the CAPS Probe and in the afternoon Tom took off for a local flight measuring in Alto-Cumulus cloud. He reported clearing skies over the North of Adelaide Island so Russ flew in another aircraft to look for Richard's glacio poles from last year. There was no sign of them indicating a high accumulation rate. We took a GPS survey of the snow surface for Richard.

We also flew over the far North of Adelaide island looking for possible locations for one of the OFCAP weather stations next season but with very high ice cliffs and a lot of crevassing, we didn't find a suitable spot close to sea level.

We flew our first local calibration flight with both aircraft this morning. With a record 12 aircraft at Rothera we had to wait a little as the remaining aircraft finish their seasons and departed from Antarctica to Punta Arenas.

The comparison flight with Polar 5 went very well. We flew an ascent in close formation as well as a low level 'L' pattern with 5 minutes separation. Now it's down to looking at the data to see how the instruments compare.

In the afternoon Tom also managed another cloud flight over above the Larsen Ice Shelf. It seems all the clouds as well as the sea ice are over there!

Today was planned as a local test/calibration flight between AZ and Polar 5 in the morning with possible more cloud/flux work in the afternoon. However we awoke to yet more strong Easterly cross winds.

We kept an eye on the winds during the day but there wasn't much change so AZ headed out alone in the afternoon with Tom and Manuel in the back to try and reach lenticular clouds formed over Marguerite bay. Richard sent through locations of the glacio poles.

The mechanics are busy fitting the BBC camera and converting one of the other twin otters into a filming platform.

No fly day today because Doug has to have a day off and no other pilots available. It is also forecast for strong Easterly cross winds at Rothera and poor weather in the Weddell Sea so flying was unlikely anyway.

It was a good chance to catch up with looking at the data so far. We also now have the Laser Altimeter flight lines from Hamish/Richard for Adelaide Island but are awaiting glacio pole positions from Richard for an additional task to combine with the Adelaide Island OFCAP AWS recce.

Russ ran the Rothera half marathon. Tom was official timekeeper and Alex cheered everyone on.

Flight 101 this morning for Tom over to cloud once again on the Larsen, this time with Easterly winds across the peninsula. The cloud was quite thick to the East of the Peninsula with a good range of temperatures at different levels in the cloud. In places there was quite a bit of icing which did degrade the performance of the CAS as the inlet started to ice despite the de-icing heaters. There was certainly plenty of ice still on the aircraft when it returned to Rothera.

The Dash-7 returned today bringing Wolfgang, Timo and Christof to complete the JASPER team. Polar 5 made its first test flight in the afternoon. They are still awaiting a spare part but enough was functioning to give a good test. There have a few issues to check out resulting from the test flight.

Dash-7 headed North this morning with a full load of passengers including Celine. The ALE twin Otter and Basler also departed taking a total of around 30 people off of base.

Tom flew a cloud flight through dissipating low cloud in Marguerite Bay. Conditions over in the Weddell Sea were not suitable for flux measurements. This flight was the 100th mission for the MASIN fit!

Nominally a day off for everyone involved with flying although that didn't quite work out because the US Larissa project finally had some suitable weather on the glaciers feeding the Larsen Ice shelf and they did several flights.

We sat down for our first meeting with all the JASPER staff here and pilots to plan how we will fly together. This was really useful and we have plans for the first couple of cross calibration flights between the two aircraft and instrument sets.

Doug took Tom and Russ across the Antarctic Peninsula today for cloud work over the Larsen Ice Shelf.

Joe and Manuel fitted the nose boom to Polar 5 as the wind dropped and it was a nice sunny day. It was a good flight for us. All instruments were working well, although one FUST had a poor connection. We flew several levels within cloud and picked up a bit of light icing, mostly towards the top of the cloud. Saturday night meal.

An Easterly flow across the Antarctic Peninsula today which would have been good to investigate but it also meant strong cross winds at Rothera and there was no flying. We took the opportunity to address all the issues from yesterdays flight. This included a dry joint in the CAPS de-ice heater cables, changing the LICOR scrubber to get sensible moisture measurements, wiring in the extra pump for the licor, removing the noise on the roof radiometers, re-aligning the IRT black body calibrator, getting the turbulence probe fast temperature sensors working and adding in the LICOR inlet temperatures and pressures to the logging display.

Joe and Manuel worked on installing cabling inside Polar 5 as it was too windy to attempt to fit the nose boom and made good progress. We took a group photo in front of Polar 5.

A second Borek Twin Otter arrived last night, the first of several aircraft transitting through Rothera on their exit from Antarctica. Just about every bunk space in Rothera could be full by the end of the week.

The timing issue yesterday was traced to a corrupt configuration in the JAVAD GPS. Resetting this cleared the problem and a poor connector lock was the problem with the floor instruments. So with everything working we headed off on a second test flight into Marguerite Bay just after Polar 5 arrived. AWI now have 3-4 days of installation/testing work. There will be no flying this Sunday so we might have both planes up and running early next week. We did a first set of constant power turns and BAT Probe stepped speed tests. These showed no significant change to the turbulence probe from last year.

There are yet a few more things to look at but the bulk of the instruments are now working well, including the new logging for the Normal Temperature.

The computer logging problem was resolved today during the morning when it was snowing and flying was not possible anyway. A fresh scrubber chemical tube was made up for the LICOR. The Normal Temperature hardware changes were integrated into the data stream and in the afternoon we had a test flight including the first cloud data!

The cloud probe worked well but there were issues relating to the JAVAD GPS and PC time syncing. These may be simple to fix but need resolving before we fly again. The connection to the floor instruments also failed on takeoff, probably a cable issue.

The fitting of the pylon and CAPS Probe was completed today and calibrations run on the probe whilst attached to the wing. The rest of the equipment was also fitted and the rack instruments wired up. A new custom pouch for the laptop display was made for us. On ground testing most instruments were working well but there there were some problems with the computer hardware logging configuration which were not simply resolved, so the test flight was postponed.

The GPS base station was set up.

We started the instrument fit to the aircraft today. This has previously been completed in 1 day but with the addition of the pylon and air mechs unfamiliar with the kit we didn't finish despite extra help from the AWI team. New shims were fitted under the roof mounted radiometers to level them with respect to the downward looking instruments. Brackets have also been made to mount the cabin smoke hoods.

The AWI aircraft Polar 5 is still working at Neumeyer base and isn't expected to arrive at Rothera until later in the week.

Stunning Sunday weather. A succesful day upgrading both the logging PCs to solid state RAID disks. The CAPS communication problem was traced to a failing serial port which was solved by switching to one of the two spare channels. Tom performed the various bench calibrations on the instrument.

The temperature interface box was also altered to change the non-deiced temperature probe logging.

We had our first discussion with Jörg and the AWI team as to how to run this joint campaign.

Alex and the AWI personnel had a day of introduction/refamiliarisation training which Tom and Russ didn't need to do so were able to start unpacking boxes and setting up the office. The MASIN PCs and the CAPS Cloud instrument were unpacked for testing and upgrades ready for the season.

The CAPS probe was mostly working but experiencing communicaction errors from the CIP imaging instrument. We tried removing a lot of background processing thinking it might be a windows issue from additional software to work with the aircraft touchscreen and checked the cables but this did not fix the problem.

We had a useful first discussion with Doug our pilot for the season and also met the aircraft mechanics. The MASIN equipment fit will be new to all of them this year.

In the evening we had the traditional base Saturday night meal with some really good Argentinian wine brought back by the Dash-7 picking up a geology field party from Marambio base.

We returned to Punta Arenas airport for a 10am departure on the Dash-7 to Rothera. It was cloudy for most of the flight but with good views once we reached Adelaide island. We settled in to our accomodation and located all our cargo from the ship.

We all had a first walk around the point and were rewarded with views of penguins, seals and a breaching humpback whale really close to the shore - welcome to Rothera!

An overnight flight from Madrid crossing the Andes in the early morning to land in Santiago de Chile. Here we cleared customs and a close examination by the agriculture department for any imported foodstuffs. Russ was required to show his nuts to the staff but was allowed to keep them. After having checked in for the onwards flight we went to the restaurant for the now customary 'Cheesecake Festival'. The afternoon flight took us to Punta Arenas via a quick stop at Puerto Montt. We were met by the agents and taken to our hotel for the night.

Tom, Alex and Russ departed BAS, Cambridge to fly to Madrid from Heathrow. In Madrid we met up with Jörg, Manuel and Johannes. They had flown from Bremen to Madrid via Frankfurt just hours before both airports were closed due to heavy snowfall.

We couldn't get boarding passes at Heathrow for the Madris-Santiago de Chile leg but managed to get them issued at the gate an hour before departure which saved a bus journey, passing through security again and getting lost in the airport bus system!