Merry Christmas! From December 22 to Christmas Eve on December 24th, we had clear skies and collected 50 hours of data. Working with our PI, we also did training sessions on the principles of how different components of the system work. On the iron lidar, we identified ways to correct the laser spectra on the… Read More

Merry Christmas Eve! The sky is clear, so we are on! We have learned how to power on & run the Sodium Doppler and Iron Boltzmann Lidars. They are running and we have been collecting data for over 24 hours. We will continue to collect data until the sky gets cloudy, pausing only for a… Read More

Check out this NPR article featuring Ms. Rose McAdoo, a creative chef and artist. This NPR article describes a lidar cake made by her, which illustrates our lidar work in Antarctica. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/11/22/779463164/antarctic-research-takes-the-cake-in-these-science-inspired-confections Around August 28, 2019, Ian Geraghty and Zimu Li (two 2019 winter-over students) sent Dr. Chu this lidar cake photo. According to Ian,… Read More

Yesterday was our brightest day of sunlight. In the United States, it probably still is 12/21, and you are experiencing your winter solstice- the day with the least sunlight. It is strange having the sun so bright at night! Many cultures celebrate the solstice, so I will share how our team’s experience. McMurdo experienced a… Read More

We made it! Dr. Chu, Jackson and I are on the ice. We have had a few days to get trained and catch up on sleep, and are now busy working on our experiments. The flight down was a very crowded 8 hour flight. We were very lucky that we didn’t have a “boomerang,” where… Read More

We have all arrived in Auckland, New Zealand safely. After having our boots inspected and (in some cases) rinsed, we are preparing for the next leg of our trip. (New Zealand takes ecological hazards seriously, and inspection of hiking boots is a precaution to ensure there is no transfer of invasive species or disease from… Read More

It is time to get this blog about the McMurdo Lidar project up and running! I am submitting this first post from the Los Angeles Airport international terminal. We are on our way to the ice! It’s going to be a special trip. It is Jackson and my’s first time on the ice. Luckily, we… Read More