Our Invisible Blanket

Mars' climate behaves to the same rules as Earths, but the conditions are completely different and poorly understood. To better understand this, we use Earth climate models adapted to Martian conditions. In this talk, Danny will go over what kind of weather you can expect to find on the red planet. Find out where your next Martian holiday might take place and why that holiday might not happen for a while!

The study of extreme events in weather and climate faces many difficulties. One challenge involves deciding what “extreme” actually means and how we can predict the impact of rare events. The other comes from the difficulties that complex chaotic physical systems governing the atmosphere impose. In this talk, I will try to explain how this is achievable through the common roots that chaos and randomness share: the concept of measure.

Simulating the atmosphere is challenging and requires approximations to physical phenomena. One example is the way we simulate clouds and precipitation (microphysics) in atmospheric models, which has historically been inconsistent with physical laws. New research reveals how these inconsistencies can be removed and uncovers why consistency is important on both the shorter time-scales of weather models, as well as the longer time-scales of our climate.

We've all been there. We want a baked potato but can't be bothered to wait an hour for the oven to cook one through. A microwaved spud just isn't the same, either. What to do? I investigate if, in a pinch, you could perfectly cook a potato by subjecting it to atmospheric re-entry. Along the way we'll talk about what it means to cook something, the different layers in the atmosphere, and boldly go where no potato has gone before.