On October 10th, Dr. Chu and I (Jackson) submitted a manuscript of a study, led by me, to AGU’s Earth and Space Science journal. This study is titled “Comparison of Three Methodologies for Removal of Random-Noise-Induced Biases From Second-Order Statistical Parameters of Lidar and Radar Measurements”. This paper studies the application of multiple different bias-correction… Read More
On this day back in 2018, I jumped on a plane to kick off what would ultimately be the most fun and rewarding experience of my life: a 14-month deployment to McMurdo Station to operate and maintain our two lidar systems which we use to study the properties and processes of the upper atmosphere. It’s… Read More
And no, I’m not talking about gravitational waves like those created by the collisions of blackholes and measured by the incredible LIGO instrument (Fun fact: LIGO is basically a gigantic Michelson interferometer which, on a much smaller scale, our group uses to measure the wavelengths of our lasers). I’m referring to atmospheric gravity waves which… Read More
This week we opened up the RDL to understand its anatomy and got much more power out! All in all the laser gods were pleased! First, we took the dye jet pump apart, cleaned it up, and added new dye bit by bit to get 20% transmission. Then Dr. Chu showed us how to adjust… Read More
With the start of the Fall 2021 semester, we’re finally back in the lab working on system development and training! Our lab goals this semester focus around the development of existing components into a working Sodium Doppler lidar. To do this, we must first train and get familiar with the systems after such a long… Read More
We received an NSF award notice on Sunday 8/22/2021 that the McMurdo lidar project has been renewed for 5 more years of lidar observations and science discoveries in Antarctica. Can’t wait to go back to the Ice and turn on our lidars to make more discoveries!… Read More
We just published a paper in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) on the first lidar observations of regular occurrence of mid-latitude thermosphere-ionosphere Na (TINa) layers over Boulder. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093729 This is the first time that metal layers are regularly seen at these extreme altitudes in the atmosphere. Just 10 years ago, Chu’s team discovered such high-altitude metal… Read More
Since the last update was posted, the world looks a little different. Although last March most of us transitioned into working from home, our Lidar scientists Xianxin Li and Cissi Lin remained away from home at the McMurdo Lidar facility throughout the entire Antarctic Winter season working to continue collecting data and operating the systems.… Read More
We just published a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) on the first-ever simultaneous lidar observations of iron (Fe) and sodium (Na) metal layers in the Antarctic thermosphere and ionosphere system. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL090181 Interplanetary dust particles, also called cosmic dust, have a widespread impact on Earth. They introduce metal atoms and ions into Earth’s upper… Read More
Our lidar team just published a paper in Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR-Atmospheres) to report the first discovery of equatorial QBO signals in Antarctic gravity wave activity at McMurdo. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020JD032866 The first author, Zimu Li, was the lidar technical lead for winter 2019 at McMurdo Station and collected a large amount of lidar data. Congratulations… Read More
