ATOC in the News

ATOC Graduate Student Joshua Aikins is interviewed by Weather Underground regarding his work on the SNOWIE project.

Phase 1 of the world's largest wind-mapping project has begun spinning up in Portugal (link to Nature article). This project, several years in the planning, will culminate with a 45-day intensive measurement campaign in May and June with an intensive observing period. Throughout that IOP, ATOC faculty Julie Lundquist's research group, led by NOAA/CIRES researcher Ludovic Bariteau and several graduate and undergraduate students, will use CU's Tethered Lifting System to measure winds and turbulence within and above the valley; the Army Research Laboratory's identical system will measure winds and turbulence outside the valley for comparison. These detailed in situ measurements will help quantify how turbulence is produced and decays in complex flow situations so that numerical flow models can better represent reality. Other participating teams include University of California Berkeley, University of Oklahoma, the US Army Research Lab, DLR (German Aerospace Center), and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, as well as the teams mentioned in the Nature article from the University of Porto, the Danish Technical University, the University of Notre Dame, and Cornell University

Congratulations to ATOC graduate students Jessica Tomaszewski and Joseph Lee who won speaker awards at the AMS Annual Meeting, in the 8th Conference on Weather, Climate, Water, and the New Energy Economy.

As part of a team led by Jennifer Kay, assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC) at CU Boulder, students spent a week on the Arctic tundra making educational videos to help teach students about climate science.

CU Boulder is participating in a cloud-seeding effort, launched this month, to increase winter snowfall in the mountains of southwest Idaho with hopes of ultimately increasing power generation by hydroelectric dams.

ATOC Professor Jennifer Kay was awarded the American Meteorological Society's annual "Henry G. Houghton" award. She was recognized "For the innovative use of observations and global climate models to better understand the rapidly evolving climate of the polar regions." The Henry G. Houghton Award is a very prestigious award that is given to an individual in recognition of research achievement in the field of physical meteorology. It is given to promising young or early-career scientists who have demonstrated outstanding ability. Jen joins an impressive list of previous award winners that includes many of the most well known atmospheric scientists in the world today.

Around this time each year, many people turn their attention to the Arctic in anticipation of the annual minimum for sea ice cover. After reaching its annual peak extent at the end of winter, Arctic sea ice melts as temperatures rise through spring and into summer. Sea ice then hits its smallest extent sometime in September

Could one volcanic eruption skew the data on rising sea levels? Yes, according to new research.

One of the great things about science is that it allows you to make predictions. Three top climate scientists just made a very bold prediction regarding sea level rise; we should know in a few years if they are correct.

The “job” that kicked off Matthew Shupe’s career is unforgettable, and so are some of the experiences he has had since, including one that was “straight out of National Geographic.”