
January is the height of summer in Antarctica. At McMurdo Station, the largest U.S. station on the continent, the average temperature in that month is 27oF and may sometimes reach a scorching 50oF! During this busy field season, there are approximately 1,000 people stationed there. In 2011, this month’s speaker, Dr. Julien Nicolas, got to spend a summer working with McMurdo’s weather forecasters. For climate researchers, Antarctica presents a particular challenge in that direct meteorological observations are very few and far between, especially when trying to go back a few decades. Fortunately, Julien can rely on computer models to get a more complete picture of the climate of this remote region and better understand how it is changing.