More PhDs finding jobs as tenure-track professors, study says #GlobeAndMail

More PhDs finding jobs as tenure-track professors, study says
Globe & Mail, 25 January 2016

"A third of graduates with doctoral degrees from Ontario universities are in tenure-track positions somewhere in the world, with half of them working as professors in Canada, the study from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario found."

When I was worried about my future as a graduate student my thesis advisor told me “the good people always get jobs.” I’m glad to see despite all the current gloom and doom the future for our graduates students is so encouraging and indeed “some things never change.”

Determining Rayleigh Scatter Lidar Temperatures Using an Optimal Estimation Method

Middle atmosphere temperature profile retrieved using an OEM (red curve) compared to the traditional analysis using 2 detector channels (blue and green curves).

• A lay summary of the paper is available at the Optical Society of America’s Spotlight on Optics.

We have recently published a paper in Applied Optics detailing a new method for retrieving temperature from Rayleigh lidar measurements using an optimal estimation method (OEM). The OEM allows a full systematic and random uncertainty budget to be done for each retrieval, specifies the height to which the retrieval is insensitive to the a priori temperature profile and gives the vertical resolution of the retrieval as a function of height. The ability to determine the full uncertainty budget is particularly important for using the Rayleigh-lidar temperature measurements for determining long-term changes, particularly for multi-instrument networks like NDACC or GRUAN. The method uses a free community-supported OEM solver developed by P. Eriksson and colleagues (qpack, part of the ARTS retrieval software package). 

We encourage you to try this method, and we are available to help answer your questions as you implement it. 

Bob and Alexander 

• Get the paper at Applied Optics: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/ao/abstract.cfm?URI=ao-54-8-1872&origin=search 
• The paper is Open Access, if you can't retrieve it at the above link try: http://drp.rjsi.ca/1lkj0/G6dBktZZ 

Canadian SciSat Finds a Delay in Ozone Recovery from The Globe...

Canadian SciSat Finds a Delay in Ozone Recovery

from The Globe and Mail: Ozone-destroying chemical making comeback

Good news, bad news:

bad news: changes in circulation are causing “old” air with high levels of ozone-destroying hydrogen chloride to persist in the stratosphere, slowing ozone recovery due to CFCs.

good news: the Canadian SCISAT made the measurements that enabled this study, yet another success from this mission. Congratulations to Profs. Kaley Walker, Tom McElroy, Peter Bernath and the SCISAT team.

more on SCISAT from the Canadian Space Agency

via https://dayone.me/10rczmL

Changing Luminosity in Saturn’s Rings Kudo to Crow Shannon, a...

Changing Luminosity in Saturn’s Rings

Kudo to Crow Shannon, a co-author in a recent study published in Icarus about the changing luminosity of Saturn’s F ring. This exciting research story was recently reported in the LA Times. You can read the article here.

OK Shannon now it is time to go back to the chaos at Echo Base ;-)

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

via https://dayone.me/Ys1zXQ

The Crows at Summer Camp

The Crows at Summer Camp on Flickr.
the young crows recently enjoyed a week at the Connaught Summer Institute in Arctic Science.

A Vertical Sundial

The photo below shows a new take (for me) on the a sundial, mounted vertically on a building instead of horizontally. You can see from the shadow that is was around noon. Also indicated (I think) are zodiacal positioning, at least that’s what the symbols looked like. And to top it off look carefully and you can see that now only did a Crow snap the picture, a Crow posed in it!


Location: Murtenhof, Mürten, Switzerland

#xkcd "How Big a change is a That?"

This is what Crows worry about. It appears it is going to be that big.

Posted with Blogsy

Newspaper Article About Crow Sham’s Trip to the Arctic

The article below recently appeared in a Sinhalese newspaper in Toronto about Crow Sham's trip to the arctic. Some of her great pictures were used in the article, which she tells has a few extrapolations by the author about Sham's background and the project. So if you can read it take the article with a grain of salt and if you can't enjoy some great pictures of the True North on a hot day (at least where this Crow perches!).

On photographing astronomical objects in daylight

M-22 globular cluster reflected in lilly pond during rare gravitational lensing event at the Jardin Botanique.

Location:Route de la Fonderie,Friburg,Switzerland

Awards brought home from NSERC Arctic Atmospheric Research Symposium | Western Physics and Astronomy --- What's Happening

So proud of all the Crows for their performance at the CREATE workshop, but in particular shout-outs to Crows Emily, Sham and Shannon for their outstanding talks!

Photo credit: Henry Leparskas

When your supervisor is away… | Western Physics and Astronomy --- What's Happening

A murder of Crows gathers to hear the squawking of the Elder Crow - who just now figured out way the group found my graph of averaging kernels so amusing!

Well done Henry! See his photos here:

When your supervisor is away… | Western Physics and Astronomy --- What's Happening

The Where to Go Crow

The Where to Go Crow on Flickr.

Perhaps we should post a copy of this sign on the House next to the Echo Base? I guess it would have to be flipped left right first? :-)

UWUO Weather Guru Predicts Extreme Winter

excerpted from the London Freee Presss, 01 April 2014:

A real scientific study with formulas and stuff was released today by a bunch of scientists including Prof. R. Sica, Professor of Whether at The University of Western University Ontario. The study boldly predicts that the winter of 2013-2014 will be one of the coldest on record. Mustang Scientist Sica told this paper that: "we’ve gone over the results with a fine tooth comb and are highly certain that a combination of highs, lows and other emotions will result in a very cold winter, particularly in January and February 2014." Sica also said: “don’t put those snow shovels away until March.”

The study will be submitted to the prestigious journal Nauturel sometime this summer .

Echoes of Walkerton in Environment Canada cuts

Prof. Thomas Duck writes:

The cost of the Walkerton tragedy was estimated at the commission to be between $64.5 million and $155 million. It remains to be seen what the cuts to Environment Canada will ultimately cost us — both financially and in human terms.

Read the full piece in the Toronto Star to appreciate the damage the Harper government is doing to the public by their attack on environmental science.

Echoes of Walkerton in Environment Canada cuts | Toronto Star

'Eureka moment' provides unique opportunity for students #westernu

Western News reporter Jason Winders quoting Crow Emily in: 'Eureka moment' provides unique opportunity for students

“Suspenders. Don’t forget suspenders,” McCullough said. “We’re both kind of short. All of our Arctic gear, which is loaned to us, even the super-powered snowpants, are a little on the big side. So the suspenders keep your pants up. But, it’s even better than that.

More Arctic Life Advice from Crow Emily to cheechako Crow Sham on their current Arctic travels in the article. Emily is safely back South and Sham is continuing to run the lidar as part of the Canadian Arctic ACE/OSIRIS Validation Campaign.

2 Crows in Eureka

ShamEurekaBalloon, a photo by Purple Crow Lidar on Flickr.

Crows Emily and Sham are back in Eureka for the ACE Arctic Campaign. As readers will know, Emily has been to Eureka several times. Sham is there for the first time. The picture shows her launching a radiosonde. I bet she is finding this quite a change from the winters in her native Sri Lanka!

Emily and Sham will principally be working on the Dalhousie CRL lidar, measuring water vapour, aerosol and cloud properties.

Updates on the campaign can be found here: http://acebox.uwaterloo.ca/eureka/, and on the CANDAC program and facilities: http://www.candac.ca.

#xkcd: Weather Geeks have it tough...

xkcd: Weather

I feel your pain Weather Geek.

zing! xkcd: Cold

or should I say cold-#snap! xkcd: Cold

Nice to see something obvious so simply explained, though I fear it will miss its intended audience and just “preach to the choir”.

CANDAC’s Eureka Observatory Featured in the #GlobeAndMail #GlobeNorth

Crow Emily is featured in this timely article on the important scientific work being done in the Canadian high arctic at Eureka:

For Emily McCullough, a Ph.D student at the University of Western Ontario who is working at the lab, its key benefits include the powerful lessons she’s learned about how to do professional research, from planning a major experiment to anticipating problems like “what happens if the wolves come and chew my cables.” 

But it’s also a place where she feels the work she does has an impact on Canada’s relationship to the rest of humanity. “Canada’s got a heck of a lot of the Arctic,” Ms. McCullough says. “It would be really great if we could contribute something to the understanding of it as a whole.”

How Canada’s Arctic lab keeps a watchful eye on climate change - The Globe and Mail

Earthrise: The 45th Anniversary

NASA has used Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter measurements to help recreate the first Earthrise seen by humans. Interesting to hear the astronauts, Lovell’s amazement versus Ander’s cool.