Arctic Weather Research: It’s a Lot More Than “It Will Be Cold Tomorrow”

I don’t think the general population has a real image of what goes into weather and climate forecasting. Vladimir Alexeev, Director of this NABOS Summer School aboard the expedition, has challenged students with a WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) project. This does not mean predicting that the Arctic will be “cold today, cold tomorrow.” Students are doing extensive programming and modeling to attempt to simulate the 2012 Arctic cyclone event. They will take variables that influence sea ice conditions, like temperature and wind, and use a numerical weather prediction model to better understand processes in Arctic systems. And even though “forecasting” is in the title, these models are not just there for predictions. The idea is to study processes where we don’t have the direct firsthand observations – we can’t have a weather station every few feet, especially in the Arctic! So we need models and computers to fill in the gaps between the places we can actually study firsthand. This is a hard-core data project, and right now the students are just learning – and they know way more than me. So as they figure it out, I’m hoping one of them (maybe Eric, Sveta, Vladimir, Tobias, or Ioana, in the photo) can tell you more soon about what is going on in that colorful photo below! But one thing I do know is that modeling is the best way to figure out all those tiny details. Because here’s the equation I can tell you for certain: limited money + limited time + endless ocean = nearly impossible to do it otherwise.