Seminars and Colloquia

Most seminars and colloquia at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies are presented during the academic year, September through May.

Informal Lunch Seminars take place on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. about twice per month, mostly during the academic year. As of 2023, these events are usually "hybrid", i.e., they are presented in person at GISS but may be attended remotely by obtaining connection details from the event host.

GISS staff also organize a Tuesday morning (11 a.m.) series of Sea Level Rise Seminars (YouTube recent, older) presented by scientists from numerous research institutions. This seminar is entirely "virtual" and occurs two or three times per month, year-round.

Other special seminars may occur depending on the schedules of visiting scientists.

Schedule

Following are upcoming seminars, workshops and other events of interest to GISS staff and to our research partners. Please note that due to security regulations, as described elsewhere on this page, presentations on the GISS premises are not open to the general public.

Please consult with the event host/contact for connection details if you wish to remotely join any event marked as "Virtual" or "Hybrid".

This event listing was last updated 2024-03-15. All times shown are New York City local.


March 13, 2024
1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.— Hybrid
GISS Lunch Seminar
Topic: Dynamical Influence on the Tropical High Clouds with Warming
Speaker: Monisha Natchiar (Univ. Exeter)
More info: Abstract
Host/Contact: Maggie DeLessio

GISS Lunch Seminar
Speaker: Monisha Natchiar (Univ. Exeter)
Title: Dynamical Influence on the Tropical High Clouds with Warming


This is hybrid presentation. Please consult with event host Maggie DeLessio for connection details if you wish to virtually attend.


Abstract:
Tropical high cloud cover decreases with surface warming in most general circulation models. The "stability-iris" hypothesis posits that this reduction is thermodynamically controlled by the rise of tropical high clouds to a more stable atmosphere, which reduces the convective outflow in the tropical upper troposphere resulting in reduced anvil cloudiness. But how do changes in the large-scale circulation independent of local thermodynamic changes contribute to anvil cloud changes with warming? In this talk, I will walk you through a novel experimental design that we used to segregate the dynamical influence from the local thermodynamical influence on the tropical high clouds with warming, and the results of this idealized study.


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March 19, 2024
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. — Virtual
Sea Level Rise Seminar
Topic: The Antarctic ice sheet's surface mass balance in a changing cryosphere-climate system
Speaker: Luke Trusel (Penn State)
Host/Contact: Patrick Alexander
March 20, 2024
1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.— Hybrid
GISS Lunch Seminar
Topic: An Historian Among the Scientists. Understanding historical climate change
Speaker: Joseph Manning (Yale Univ.)
More info: Abstract
Host/Contact: Maggie DeLessio

GISS Lunch Seminar
Speaker: Joseph Manning (Yale Univ.)
Title: An Historian Among the Scientists. Understanding historical climate change


This is hybrid presentation. Please consult with event host Maggie DeLessio for connection details if you wish to virtually attend.


Abstract:
A "Eureka" moment in a small New Haven restaurant led Frank and I to form a small, remarkable group of scientists, historians and some excited students to try and understand the connections between large volcanic eruptions and the social history of ancient Egypt. We got to work on writing up a paper that would become a kind of proof of concept for a large US National Science Foundation Project. As far as I know it was their first historian-led project to successfully win funding in the program called "Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems." This was no small feat since we had to satisfy three different divisions of the NSF-Geosciences, Biological Sciences, and Social and Economic sciences. This was all about teamwork, not the normal way of working in History, which is much more geared to the lone scholar in his or her study synthesizing facts and creating narratives. This was something different, but also very promising, and we were convinced when we started that the idea of understanding human societies as "coupled" to their natural environments, acting on, and influencing each other, was very much the way forward in understanding the human past. The work will allow us at once to more richly understand the human past and to come up with better solutions to our current climate predicament, and how best we as a species can and should respond and prepare. I will discuss the results of the project so far and why it matters for History.


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March 21, 2024
2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.— Hybrid
ROCKE-3D Seminar
Topic: Coupling biological, interior and atmosphere models to infer habitability and biosignatures
Speaker: Antonin Affholder (University of Arizona)
Host/Contact: Michael Way
March 26, 2024
10 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. — Virtual
Sea Level Rise Seminar
Topic: Sea-Level in Singapore and Southeast Asia
Speaker: Tanghua Li (Earth Observatory of Singapore)
Host/Contact: Patrick Alexander
March 27, 2024
1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.— Hybrid
GISS Lunch Seminar
Speaker: Juliet Pilewskie (NASA/GISS/Columbia)
Host/Contact: Maggie DeLessio
April 3, 2024
1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.— Hybrid
GISS Lunch Seminar
Speaker: Ogochukwu Enekwizu (Brookhaven Nat'l Lab)
Host/Contact: Maggie DeLessio
April 10, 2024
1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.— Hybrid
GISS Lunch Seminar
Speaker: Ken Carslaw (Univ. Leeds)
Host/Contact: Maggie DeLessio
April 17, 2024
1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.— Hybrid
GISS Lunch Seminar & Discussion
Topic: Discussion of Science Philosophy
Speaker: Dan Li and Ryan O'Loughlin (CUNY)
Host/Contact: Maggie DeLessio
April 22, 2024
8 a.m. to 5 p.m.— Hybrid
NASA(AOS)-GEWEX Convection workshop
Topic: NASA(AOS)-GEWEX Convection workshop
Host/Contact: Gregory Elsaesser
April 23, 2024
8 a.m. to 5 p.m.— Hybrid
NASA(AOS)-GEWEX Convection workshop
Topic: NASA(AOS)-GEWEX Convection workshop
Host/Contact: Gregory Elsaesser
April 23, 2024
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. — Virtual
Sea Level Rise Seminar
Topic: Decadal sea level variability in tide gauges and high resolution climate models
Speaker: Christopher Little (AER Corp.)
Host/Contact: Patrick Alexander
April 24, 2024
8 a.m. to 5 p.m.— Hybrid
NASA(AOS)-GEWEX Convection workshop
Topic: NASA(AOS)-GEWEX Convection workshop
Host/Contact: Gregory Elsaesser
April 24, 2024
1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.— Hybrid
GISS Lunch Seminar
Speaker: Caroline Juang (Columbia/LDEO)
Host/Contact: Maggie DeLessio
April 25, 2024
8 a.m. to 5 p.m.— Hybrid
NASA(AOS)-GEWEX Convection workshop
Topic: NASA(AOS)-GEWEX Convection workshop
Host/Contact: Gregory Elsaesser
April 26, 2024
1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.— Hybrid
Special Seminar
Topic: Lightning, Cloud Microphysics, and Thunderstorm Dynamics
Speaker: Eric Bruning (Atmospheric Science Group, Texas Tech University)
More info: Abstract
Host/Contact: Ann Fridlind

Special Seminar
Speaker: Eric Bruning (Atmospheric Science Group, Texas Tech University)
Title: Lightning, Cloud Microphysics, and Thunderstorm Dynamics


This is hybrid presentation. Please consult with event host Ann Fridlind for connection details if you wish to virtually attend.


Abstract:
Thunderstorm electrification and lightning is a product of precipitation microphysics, in particular being intimately related to collisions between ice crystals and riming, precipitating ice. Microphysical conditions are also connected to thunderstorm kinematics via vertical draft structure, and secondary mesoscale feedbacks such as cold pool evolution. Lightning flash size distributions are also dependent on the degree of turbulence-scale transport of charge, which varies from active updrafts to stratified anvils. Lightning is therefore informative about and depends upon our understanding of crucial uncertainties in thunderstorm processes: mixed-phase precipitation microphysics, and eddy-scale dynamics.

Observational studies, including the recent TRACER/ESCAPE field campaign in Houston, and the NOAA PERiLS campaign in the southeastern United States, have sought to address these uncertainties through coordinated observations of the thermodynamic, kinematic, and aerosol environment, while observing the storms with polarimetric weather radar. In both environments, significant warm rain precipitation is observed, with only some storms having a deep mixed phase. These campaigns also, uniquely, employed a VHF Lightning Mapping Array to measure the 3D path of all lightning channels in each storm. Each storm is tracked using the open-source tobac package, giving a Lagrangian perspective on the development of mixed phase microphysics. In isolated storms, the presence of ZDR and KDP columns measured by polarimetric radar reliably indicated that those cells would produce lightning. However, in the mesoscale quasi-linear convective systems in the southeast, lightning signals the up-scale convective development of thunderstorm complexes. These mesoscale charge reservoirs allow for lightning in the absence of the vigorous mixed-phase drafts that promptly produce lightning in isolated storms.


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April 30, 2024
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. — Virtual
Sea Level Rise Seminar
Topic: Incidence and impacts of chronic coastal flooding in North Carolina
Speaker: Miyuki Hino (Univ. North Carolina)
Host/Contact: Patrick Alexander
May 1, 2024
1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.— Hybrid
GISS Lunch Seminar
Speaker: Melissa Lott (Center on Global Energy Policy)
Host/Contact: Maggie DeLessio
May 7, 2024
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. — Virtual
Sea Level Rise Seminar
Topic: Dependence of Regional Sea Level on the Depth of Meltwater Input
Speaker: Aurora Basinski (NYU)
Host/Contact: Patrick Alexander
May 14, 2024
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. — Virtual
Sea Level Rise Seminar
Speaker: Lavanya Ashokkumar (Univ. Alabama)
Host/Contact: Patrick Alexander
May 21, 2024
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. — Virtual
Sea Level Rise Seminar
Speaker: Yixi Zheng (Univ. East Anglia)
Host/Contact: Patrick Alexander
May 28, 2024
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. — Virtual
Sea Level Rise Seminar
Topic: Mass Loss of Greenland Peripheral Glaciers
Speaker: Laura Larocca (Univ. Arizona)
Host/Contact: Patrick Alexander
June 10, 2024
8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.— Hybrid
Workshop on the Use of Climate Models in Mission Design
Host/Contact: Ann Fridlind
June 11, 2024
8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.— Hybrid
Workshop on the Use of Climate Models in Mission Design
Host/Contact: Ann Fridlind
June 11, 2024
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. — Virtual
Sea Level Rise Seminar
Topic: Interactions between ice sheets, sea level and the solid earth using E3SM
Speaker: Holly Han (JPL)
Host/Contact: Patrick Alexander
June 12, 2024
8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Workshop on the Use of Climate Models in Mission Design
Host/Contact: Ann Fridlind

Special Events

Forthcoming meetings, workshops, and other special events that will be hosted by GISS staff include the following:

NASA/AOS-GEWEX Convection Workshop

Apr. 22-25, 2024. For information, contact Gregory Elsaesser.

NASA/GSFC-ESD Workshop on the Use of Climate Models in Satellite Mission Design

June 10-12, 2024. For information, contact Ann Fridlind.

+ Past Meetings & Workshops

Security Note

Federal regulations require that visitors to NASA/GISS arrange in advance for a building pass. Persons planning to attend a GISS seminar or colloquium held on-site at the institute should contact the event host several days in advance of the event for assistance.

Persons who are not U.S. citizens or U.S. permanent residents and who may be planning a visit to GISS require that special arrangements be made. Please co-ordinate with your GISS host on this at least three weeks before your visit.

Due to implementation of the REAL ID Act (2005), a passport, state driver's license or state identification card is required for admittance to the GISS premises, which is considered a federal facility. If you do not have a state-issued license or ID that is considered REAL-ID compliant, we urge you to obtain one before one is required to enter a federal facility. Enforcement of this requirement was delayed due to the COVID pandemic and is now expected to begin in May 2025.

All visitors can expect to have their bags searched upon entry to GISS. This may include having to answer questions about personal items, including any medication the visitor may be carrying.