Antarctica is one of the best places in the world to observe rare optical phenomena. While working on the lidar systems here at McMurdo station, Antarctica, we have encountered a wide range of these effects. They are driven by ice crystals, extreme temperatures, and other atmospheric conditions. This is the first post in a series… Read More
My name is Zig Lewon, and I joined the Chu research group in late December 2025. I had a fairly unusual (and very lucky) path to doing research on the ice. I studied Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at CU Boulder. During my time there, my professors often talked about opportunities in atmospheric science. One lecture… Read More
Jess describes her birthday activities in Antarctica!… Read More
2025-2026 Winter-Over Lead Jess Alschuler details her first week after arriving at McMurdo Station, Antarctica!… Read More
Over the past few weeks, the team has been hard at work preparing for the upcoming winter and strategizing for the refurbishment season ahead. While the challenges may seem daunting, the months ahead promise exciting opportunities to enhance our system and the quality of the data it can produce. Cloudy skies persisted from Christmas to… Read More
After two hectic days of wrapping up the academic semester and collecting our issued extreme weather gear in Christchurch, our group—Dr. Xinzhao Chu, Kamen Schaefle, and I (Shay Mayer) —finally arrived at McMurdo Station on the evening of December 21st. We arrived on a C130 and were lucky enough to watch a beautiful flight over… Read More
We awoke before 5 AM on Friday, February 2nd in Christchurch, NZ to shuttle to the USAP Clothing Distribution Center. There, we collected our cold weather gear and prepared to board a US Air Force C-17 cargo plane to McMurdo. The flight was noisy, but legroom was ample, as was the in-flight meal. We stepped… Read More
On Sunday, January 28th, five members of Dr. Chu’s lidar research team began the journey to McMurdo. Two of those five members, Yingfei Chen and Shannen Graham-Howard, are this year’s brave winter-over researchers. The other three, Dr. Chu, Gary Sutliff, and Ari Diddams, will be deployed to McMurdo for about 18 days in February to… Read More
To start a new winter season for 2024, Dr. Chu and I with the other three group members (Shannen, Ari and Gary) met at Houston International Airport and departed United States for New Zealand together. This will be the first time for Shannen, Ari and Gary to reach the Southern Hemisphere, which makes them very… Read More
We met today with Nancy and Gianna at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History to discuss the early stages of designing a museum exhibit sharing the works of our McMurdo lidar campaign! We hope to share our excitement about STEM fields, while educating visitors about geospace and the role that our data plays… Read More
