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by Katherine Leitzell
August 6, 2009

In a bustling room in Fairbanks, Alaska, a group of researchers watched two blips move eastward on a map of the Arctic. After an eight-hour flight collecting atmospheric data over northern Canada, the blips—two airplanes riddled with sensors—had almost reached Thule, Greenland. Jennifer Olson, an atmospheric chemist, worked on data archiving and flight planning during the 2008 Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites (ARCTAS) experiment. Olson said, "We were about to leave for the day, when we saw that one of the airplanes had not stopped in Thule. It was continuing on."

Strong winds in Thule, Greenland, forced the pilots of the NASA McDonnell Douglas DC-8 to look for a calmer spot to land. The scientists had to rethink their carefully planned research flight. Flight time was limited during the mission, and the researchers in Fairbanks found themselves scrambling through satellite data, weather maps, and pollution forecasts to rebuild a flight plan that would allow the scientists on the airplane to take a few more measurements. Getting the most out of each research flight was key to the success of the field experiment. Olson said, "We just wanted to squeeze any science that we could out of the situation."

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Author: Laura Naranjo
NASA Official: Jeanne Behnke
Last Updated: 6 August 2009
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