ATOC in the News

President-elect Donald Trump in December grabbed the attention of nuclear weapons experts and others across the world by commenting in a television interview, "Let it be an arms race."

Scientists and students led by CU Boulder and Rutgers University are calculating the environmental and human impacts of a potential nuclear war using the most sophisticated scientific tools available. The lead researchers, CU Boulder Professor Brian Toon and Rutgers Professor Alan Robock, have been studying the threat in-depth for decades.

Congratulations to ATOC faculty Kristopher Karnauskas (Ocean Scientists early Career Award) and Jan Lenaerts (Cryosphere Early Career Award) who have received accolades from groups representing their disciplines within the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the world’s largest Earth and space science society. They have been chosen for this recognition for their innovative research, important contributions to promoting better understanding of their scientific fields, and meritorious work and service to their communities

THE RESEARCHERS HAD ALREADY DONE FOUR FLIGHTS, earlier in January, before they saw the first hints of what they were looking for. The crew of meteorologists, atmospheric scientists, and students had converged near Idaho’s Snake River Basin, a horseshoe-shaped depression between ranges of the Rocky Mountains that is 125 miles at its widest point.

"Your question about mermaids in an excellent one," the letter started, which was printed on official CU letterhead. "I'm glad you decided to ask our department for the answer."

ATOC graduate student Rochelle Worsnop is the lead author of a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters assessing hurricane impacts on wind turbines. Offshore wind turbines built according to current standards may not be able to withstand the powerful gusts of a Category 5 hurricane, creating potential risk for any such turbines built in hurricane-prone areas, new University of Colorado Boulder-led research shows. The study, which was conducted in collaboration with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, highlights the limitations of current turbine design and could provide guidance for manufacturers and engineers looking to build more hurricane-resilient turbines in the future.

Researchers are now gathered for the Perdigão field campaign, an effort to study wind flow physics at scales down to tens of meters. The effort should help engineers harness wind energy in Europe.

The Boulder Faculty Assembly (BFA) awarded ATOC Department Chair Cora E. Randall the Excellence in Leadership and Service Award. In recent years, Randall co-lead efforts to revise the College of Arts and Sciences core curriculum. In the words of her co-leader on that project, she "always took the time to fully inform herself about each and every issue, considered a variety of perspectives and engaged with all stakeholders, and was transparent in her decision-making and her communications with others."

After spending two nights at 8,000 feet elevation on top of Granite Peak running a Doppler On Wheels (DOW) radar, it was time to head back down the mountain on a road that is plowed 4 days a week. This video shows the snowmobile ride down as we maneuvered over 10' snow drifts that filled in the road after only 2 days of snow.

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