Colloquia for Spring 2025
Advancing Precipitation Monitoring and Forecasting Using AI
March 06, 2025
Simon Pfreundschuh
Hosted by Russ Schumacher
Monitoring and predicting precipitation is crucial for disaster prevention, agriculture, energy production, and water resource management. However, the high spatiotemporal variability of rainfall and the complex atmospheric processes governing its formation pose significant challenges to conventional observation and forecasting methods. With their ability to integrate various data sources and…
Evaluating Colorado Mountain Snowpack: Applications in Higher Education and Regional Avalanche Forecasting
February 27, 2025
David Lerach
Hosted by Kristen Rasmussen
Snow avalanches provide a relevant and exciting topic for earth science education and weather and snowpack research, particularly in Colorado where they serve as a major natural hazard to transportation and commerce, as well as life and property. The Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC) provides daily avalanche forecasts and assists CDOT in controlling nearly 300 known slide paths…
Understanding Plant Water Dynamics Using Vegetation Optical Depth Inferred From GNSS Signals
February 20, 2025
Yitong Yao
Hosted by Dien Wu
Forest carbon sinks play a pivotal role in achieving carbon neutrality, yet water availability has become a key limiting factor in regulating their capacity. Understanding plant water dynamics is therefore essential for accurately estimating carbon sequestration potential and assessing associated risks under climate change. While existing methods from field observations to airborne and…
CSU's Advanced Lasers and Extreme Photonics Center and ATLAS Facility: Ultra-Intense Lasers for Science and Technology
February 13, 2025
Jorge Rocca
Hosted by Dave Randall
Ultra-intense lasers can heat matter to reach conditions found at the center of stars, and drive nuclear fusion in the laboratory. This talk will review the applications of ultra-intense lasers in science and technology and the contributions CSU is making in this area. CSU has a long history in the evelopment and application of advanced lasers. In 2017 it commissioned ALEPH, one of the most…
Precipitation Efficiency, Water Cycling, and Length Scales of Moisture Transport
February 06, 2025
Adriana Bailey
Hosted by Christine Chiu
The global atmospheric circulation transports energy from low latitudes towards the poles. Outside the tropics, about half the energy transport is in the form of latent heat, creating a tight link between the water cycle and climate. As climate changes, it is expected that hydrological connections between latitudes will follow suit. However, understanding these changes is complicated by the…
The imprint of cryosphere and mantle dynamics in the coral reefs of Australia
January 30, 2025
Andrea Dutton
Hosted by Pat Keys
This is a tale of two coastlines. They share a common history of global sea level change on the same continent, yet there are distinct and telling differences in the sedimentary record that has been left behind. In one case, an uplifted margin gives us unprecedented insight into the evolution of coral reef accretion along the west coast of Australia during the Last Interglacial. The exposed…