Journal Entry

I just returned from the 13th Workshop on Antarctic Meteorology and Climate at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin from July 16-19. People from 12 countries (South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Chile, Croatia, Germany, South Korea, Italy, Argentina, Japan and the United States), National Science Foundation representatives, forecasters, observers, researchers, archivists, Air Force pilots, and navigators and logistics people have gathered here in the spirit of scientific cooperation to discuss the climate and meteorology of Antartica. More specifically these people are here to improve the quality and quantity of data (moment to moment and historical weather information) from locations all over Antartica. It wasn't as a National Science Foundation representative jokingly whispered to me, "a bunch of weather-weenies!"

Here is an article about the workshop.

Bucky and me.This is Bucky Badger, Wisconsin's mascot. I had to get my picture with Bucky, although as a OSU grad... it was difficult. 13th WAMCThis was a meeting of the best and brightest of the world's leading meteorologists and climate scientists.

What is really exciting is that my team, lead by Dr. Matthew Lazzara, Lee Welhouse and David Mikolajczyk are hosting this impressive group of people. Dr. Lazzara is obviously very respected and is a leader in this global scientific community. Attending this workshop has allowed me to meet people from all over the world and become familiar with their varied needs and perspectives. This has been a very valuable experience to get to see the actual inner-workings of international cooperation on the collection, sharing and interpretation of weather and climate data. And I will be working with the Automatic Weather Stations that will be collecting the data that they all want and need. This data is used for several purposes depending on who is looking at it. The Air Force wants to know what the weather is GOING to be where they want to safely land their airplanes. The meteorologists want to know accurate current information about the relative humidity, wind direction and velocity, snow depth, precipitation, barometric pressure, and of course temperature so that they can predict what the weather will be at any location. The climatologists want to know all of that information too, but they want to look at that information as a whole over long periods of time so that they can identify long-term trends.

WAMC swagSwag from attending the 13th Workshop on Antarctic Meteorology and Climatology.

Before I got here I didn’t know what to expect. I’m just a school teacher with very little knowledge on these subjects, will they accept me? Would the workshop be a mind-numbingly boring geek fest? It turns out that I felt accepted immediately. The entire workshop was extremely interesting and engaging. The most challenging part of this workshop has been the dizzying blizzard of acronyms (WMO,WWW, GTS, WIS, NOAA, AWS, AMRC, YOPP, WIGOS, USAP, SPAWAR, WAMC, USN, IAMAS, USAF, NCAR, UCAR, BPCRC OSCAR NASA and many more!). The most surprising thing was that this group of people are a family. They obviously have known each other for a long time and they obviously all work well together with impressive global cooperation.

SSECThis is the Space Science and Engineering Center in Madison, Wisconsin where the Antarctic Meteorological Research Center (AMRC) is housed. Beat Ohio State?This is... difficult to look at... being a graduate of The Ohio State University. It felt better knowing that it is rare for Wisconsin to beat OSU in football... I'll let them dream.

Comments

Tue, 10/30/2018 - 10:30

Christina

What is your favorite thing to do in Wisconsin ?

Thu, 11/01/2018 - 18:01

Mike Penn

Christina, I was able to go to Madison, Wisconsin twice to meet and work with my team. I was able to become familiar with the equipment and I learned a lot! The campus of the University of Wisconsin is really nice. I got to go to a Wisconsin Football game. I went to Ohio State, so it was hard to root for Wisconsin but the game was fun.

Mon, 07/23/2018 - 05:45

michelle

Mike - What were your aha moments at the workshop and what was the most interesting thing you learned?

Mon, 07/30/2018 - 16:02

Mike Penn

Michelle,
It was humbling to be with the world leaders in Climatology and Meteorology! I'd have to say that my "Ah-Ha" moment was that the Antarctic environment is so pure, there is so little particulate matter in the air, that liquid water can exist in the air as cold as -40C! Generally, water needs a nucleus, a particle of dust or pollution, on which to collect and freeze. But in Antarctica, there is so little pollution or dust that these conditions can exist. That is a real problem when you fly an airplane through a cloud or fog under those conditions. Ice accumulating on airplanes is very very bad.

Another interesting thing was a phenomenon called the Froehn Effect. A Foehn wind is a down-slope wind that happens in the lee of a mountain or other obstruction. When the moist air is compressed, there is a warming of air in that place and precipitation is caused there. Most of the moisture is removed and a "warm" and dry wind is caused on the lee side of the mountain or obstruction. There is a lot of interest and study in this area to explain unusual Antarctic weather conditions and explain areas of higher than expected or lower than expected temperatures and precipitation.

Thanks for the question Michelle!

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