Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Cryospheric and Polar Processes Seminar

Wednesday August 29 2018 @ 11:00 am
to 12:00 pm

August

29

Wed

2018

11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Availability

Open to Public

Audience
  • CIRES employees
  • CU Boulder employees
  • General Public
  • NOAA employees
  • Science collaborators
  • Host
    NSIDC

    Eight years of lidar observations in Antarctica — what are we studying? by Xinzhao Chu, CIRES Fellow
    Shooting lidar beams to the southern skies and detecting the mysterious meteoric Fe and Na layers and persistent waves is one of the major activities conducted by the CIRES lidar group in the last eight years. CIRES graduate students, one per year, have braved through the harsh Antarctic winters, operating lidars for invaluable data to study the atmosphere and space. They made tremendous contributions to the success of McMurdo lidar campaign. Many new science discoveries have emerged from the data in the studies of space-atmosphere interactions, ranging from the unprecedented thermosphere-ionosphere Fe and Na (TIFe and TINa) layers, to persistent gravity waves, to aurora-enhanced tidal amplitudes, and to solar and geomagnetic effects on atmospheric composition and dynamics. We are forming a few big pictures concerning the meteoric metal layers and gravity waves over the Antarctic. This seminar will introduce what we have learned and what we are studying from the 8-year McMurdo lidar campaign. More CIRES students are preparing their trips to continue the legendary lidar campaign in Antarctica.