On Monday at noon, HALO had set off from Oberpfaffenhofen to its new temporary home in Anchorage, Alaska. After a refueling stop in Kevlavik (Iceland), HALO also landed safely in Anchorage at noon on the same day – practically a time jump due to the 10-hour time difference. Here, a crowd of data-hungry scientists was already waiting to receive HALO and view the measurements obtained during the transfer flight.
HALO will now spend the next 5 weeks taking measurements over the Pacific, Alaska and Canada, where it will again specifically investigate air masses from the Asian monsoon. In principle, this is similar to the measurements we have already made from Oberpfaffenhofen over the Mediterranean region. There we measured air masses that are transported westward from the Asian monsoon towards southern Europe, and now we are looking at the air masses and their transport paths that are transported eastward from the Asian monsoon over the Pacific. So we can then better understand where exactly the differences are between the two transport directions and what influence we expect on the northern latitudes during this transport process. I myself will accompany the PHILEAS mission for three weeks on site and will mainly be responsible for mission coordination and instrument support of our water vapor instrument FISH.