Thursday, January 4, 2018 - 7:30pm to 8:30pm
Backstage Bistro
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.