Opening Observational Portals into Earth's Climate System
Claire Mundi and Tristan L’Ecuyer recently published their paper, “Intense Storms Increase Global Ice Area,” in Nature Communications (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76931-4). By analyzing two decades of storms, this study finds that storm impacts on sea ice vary seasonally and are stronger in the southern hemisphere. As a result, storms increase global annual sea ice area, which is an effect …
Congratulations to group members Dr. Claire Mundi and Carolyn Bean for graduating this spring! Claire and Carolyn graduated with their PhD and MS, respectively, in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. Carolyn’s MS thesis is titled, “A Qualitative Far-Infrared Characterization of Convective Cloud Tops” and she will continue research with the PREFIRE science team as a PhD …
Research scientist Dr. Kyle Mattingly was featured in a UW News article, “Atmospheric rivers linked to melting Greenland ice sheet,” advertising his newly published paper in Nature Communications. Kyle’s article, titled, “Increasing extreme melt in northeast Greenland linked to foehn winds and atmospheric rivers,” explores atmospheric rivers’ impacts on the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Both PREFIRE CubeSats successfully launched in Mahia, New Zealand on May 25, 2024 (PREFIRE-SAT2) and June 5, 2024 (PREFIRE-SAT1). The two satellites, launched by Rocket Lab, are part of NASA PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far InfraRed Experiment) and will be the first to measure far-infrared radiation in polar regions. “Ready, Aim, PREFIRE” The PREFIRE-SAT2 CubeSat …
After a little more than 7 years of development, our PREFIRE team successfully completed final mission readiness and operations readiness reviews and were declared ready to launch our two CubeSats that will systematically map far-infrared emission from the polar regions for the first time. Rocket Lab will launch each PREFIRE CubeSat on their Electron rocket …
PhD candidate Julia Shates was selected for the 2022 AGU Precipitation Student Award for her oral presentation Multi-year Analysis of Rain-Snow Levels at Marquette, Michigan. Every fall AGU meeting, the AGU Precipitation Technical Committee selects students for the Precipitation Student Award. Julia’s talk summarized her work that was published in JGR: Atmospheres, “Multi-Year Analysis of …
The University of Wisconsin–Madison may be the birthplace of satellite meteorology, but scientists on campus have never stopped developing new ways for space-based instruments to protect and improve the lives of people back on Earth.