Jan Krecke, a PhD student at the University of Auckland visited us in Alexandra on 26 July. Jan gave a very interesting presentation to the team on his latest work on ship detection with small-satellite SAR (synthetic aperture radar) systems. He then spent the remainder of his visit with our team member Usama Farooq discussing their respective Catalyst Strategic: MBIE-DLR (German Aerospace Center) funded SAR projects and potential collaboration opportunities.

Kyle Clem, a Research Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington, visited us here at Bodeker Scientific from 12 - 23 April. Kyle has an interest in how tropical variability influences the climate of Antarctica, by using observations and climate models to investigate how tropical sea surface temperature anomalies drive changes in the atmospheric circulation across the Southern Hemisphere high latitudes. During his visit, Kyle presented some of his findings recently published in Nature, and worked with Greg and Leroy on applying convolutional neural networks to infer changes in the parameters of Generalized Extreme Value distributions evaluated across NZ, Australia and Europe to produce return periods.

Dáithí Stone, a climate scientist at NIWA, visited Bodeker Scientific from 20 - 22 April. Dáithí's recent research focus has been on the attribution of changes in the chances of extreme weather events, such as extremely hot seasons or wet seasons, in particular the attribution of the risk of damage. Dáithí has been working with Greg on the FEWhANZ project, and his visit was an opportunity to collaborate in-person.

Mike Kittridge, a hydrologist and data scientist from Headwaters Hydrology, visited us in Alexandra 11 - 12 January. Mike has extensive Python programming experience for time series analysis for surface water flow, precipitation, water usage, water allocation, stream naturalization through reintroducing extracted water back into the streams, and spatial analysis. His visit was to learn more about Bodeker Scientific and to exchange knowledge and ideas, and explore avenues for future collaboration.

Larry Thomason a senior research scientist from NASA who is a well-known expert in the use of data from the Stratospheric aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) series of instruments, visited Bodeker Scientific between March 4th and 15th.
He collaborated with Stefanie Kremser to improve the use of SAGE II ozone observations in the construction of long-term data sets such as that developed by Bodeker Scientific. A primary goal was an improved set of data usage rules related to factors that impact SAGE II ozone data quality such as aerosol loading. The process they develop to create these new rules should be extensible to more challenging species like SAGE II water vapour and SAGE I ozone. A paper for publication is being constructed simultaneously with the ongoing research.

Dr Thomason's visit was covered by the Otago Dailty Times - read the article here.

Olivier Pfeiffer and Norman Schweimanns from the Einstein Center Digital Future in Berlin, Germany, visited Bodeker Scientific to give a presentation about the recently established graduate school on data science, the Helmholtz-Einstein International Research School on Data Science (HEIBRiDS). Norman, Oliver, and the Bodeker Scientific team also talked about a future cooperation between HEIBRiDS and Bodeker Scientific. We would be very happy to involve HEIBRiDS doctoral students into the climate research conducted in Alexandra, New Zealand.

Prof Dr Juergen Fischer from the Institute for Space Sciences at Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany, visited the offices of Bodeker Scientific in April and gave a talk entitled 'Observation of Cloud Properties from synergistic MERIS/AATSA observation.' As Juergen is co-supervising Jordis' PhD project titled 'Enhancing the upper-air observational record to improve satellite validation and weather forecasts', the progress of her research was discussed with Juergen and Greg. Juergen also visited the offices of NIWA in Lauder where he gave a talk entitled 'Global Column Water Vapour Observation above Land Surfaces'.

Anne Thompson, Chief Scientist for Atmospheric Chemistry from NASA visited Bodeker Scientific for a few days in February.
Anne's research interests include investigations of tropospheric chemical and dynamical processes from air-sea gas exchange to interactions with the lower stratosphere.
You can view her full biography on the NASA website here.

Dr Larry Thomason from NASA Langley Research Center visited Bodeker Scientific for 3 weeks from 9 March to 25 March 2015.
Dr Thomason worked with Stefanie on a review paper that will outline the state of the current knowledge about stratospheric sulfur and aerosol, from a measurement and model perspective. Dr Thomason also gave a talk and interview at the US Embassy in Wellington, and an interview can be found here.

Anna Mikalsen had a working visit to Bodeker Scientific from 24 September to 24 October. Anna had been at the GCOS Secretariat in Geneva for the previous 6 years. While at Bodeker Scientific, Anna working on a number of GRUAN projects including organising a GRUAN side event for WMO Congress in May/June 2015, revising the GRUAN brochure, assisting with finalizing and submitting a GRUAN paper to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, and other activities related to outreach to the international GRUAN community. While in Alexandra, Anna gave an interview with the local newspaper (The Mirror).

Howard Diamond from the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) GCOS (Global Climate Observing System) office visited Bodeker Scientific from 31 August to 2 September. The main purpose of Howard's visit was to discuss future plans for GRUAN (GCOS Reference Upper Air Network) in which a number of Bodeker Scientific staff are involved.

Dr Nicholas Jones (Univeristy of Wollongong, Australia) visited Bodeker Scientific for three weeks (7 June to 28 June 2014) to work with Stefanie Kremser. Nicholas and Stefanie worked on a joint project looking at carbonyl sulfide (OCS) in the Southern Hemisphere, which is part of Stefanie's Marsden. Together with Dan Smale from NIWA, they were able to retrieve a good set of total and partial columns of OCS for three measurements sites, i.e. Lauder, Arrival Heights and Wollongong. The OCS columns were derived from FTIR measurements provided from NIWA (Lauder, Arrival Heights) and from the University of Wollongong.

Professor Ulrich Platt from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, visited Bodeker Scientific in March 2014 to work on a joint research proposal, to discuss future research linkages between New Zealand and Germany, and developments regarding a planned IRTG (International Research Training Group) initiative between New Zealand and Germany.

Associate Professor Malte Meinshausen (University of Melbourne) visited Bodeker Scientific in March 2014. The aim was to work on implementing a new stratospheric module in the simple climate model MAGICC within the NZARI project, a collaboration between Bodeker Scientific, A/Prof. Malte Meinshausen, Dr. James Renwick, Dr. Markus Rex, and Prof. Bryce Williamson.

Dr Markus Rex from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research - Research unit Potsdam visited Bodeker Scientific from 21 to 24 January 2014. The main purpose of his visit was to discuss the current state of the NZARI project, a collaboration between Bodeker Scientific, A/Prof. Malte Meinshausen, Dr. James Renwick, Dr. Markus Rex, and Prof. Bryce Williamson, and to follow up with Stefanie on her current Marsden project on which Markus is an associate investigator.

Dr Robyn Schofield from University of Melbourne and Dr. Markus Rex from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research - Research unit Potsdam visited Bodeker Scientific from 6 to 12 April 2013 to discuss the current state of the Fast-Start Marsden Project on which both are associated investigators.