Astronomical seeing and ground-layer turbulence in the Canadian High Arctic

• Main Authors: Hickson, P., Gagne, R., Pfrommer, T., Steinbring, E.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: arXiv 2013
• Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics astro-ph.IM; FOS Physical sciences; Arctic; Ellesmere Island
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1305.0615; https://arxiv.org/abs/1305.0615

We report results of a two-year campaign of measurements, during arctic winter darkness, of optical turbulence in the atmospheric boundary-layer above the Polar Environment Atmospheric Laboratory in northern Ellesmere Island (latitude +80 deg N). The data reveal that the ground-layer turbulence in the Arctic is often quite weak, even at the comparatively-low 610 m altitude of this site. The median and 25th percentile ground-layer seeing, at a height of 20 m, are found to be 0.57 and 0.25 arcsec, respectively. When combined with a free-atmosphere component of 0.30 arcsec, the median and 25th percentile total seeing for this height is 0.68 and 0.42 arcsec respectively. The median total seeing from a height of 7 m is estimated to be 0.81 arcsec. These values are comparable to those found at the best high-altitude astronomical sites.