FALL 2026
Wednesdays at 3:00 pm, Seminar Room SLAB 103 / Virtual SLAB 103
Aug 19: NO SEMINAR
Aug 26: NO SEMINAR
Sep 02: Dr. Brian Mapes
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Rosenstiel School
Quantum Computing and Sensing for Weather and Climate Applications Workshop
– a Glimpse from the Sidelines
This 3-day workshop was held at NCAR in Boulder in August 2026, with US CLIVAR as reputable organizers. It seemed like a unique chance to see what the Quantum excitement is all about, and where that technology stands along the Gartner Hype Cycle, in the context of an applied science field I understand. Both curiosity and national-(in)security pitches spur rather mathy researchers to seek any Quantum Advantage over classical electronics and computers, and to dream of Quantum Supremacy: a problem that only Q-computers can solve. In the computing arena, factoring integers is supposedly the 'killer app' (imperiling current cryptographic security), although strategies exist already for the looming threat of "Y2Q" or "Q-day". Some aspects of machine learning, like minimization of a complicated cost function, might also be at stake.
Quantum Sensing seemed the most promising for our field. Nonlinear optics for chemical spectroscopy is a mature deployed area, and it counts. A ridiculously precise gravity-gradiometer satellite concept from JPL seemed like a dream for inferring near-surface mass patterns on the Earth. The fascinating Rydberg Atom has an electron so far out that its orbit acts like a classical antenna, sensitive to all radio frequencies at once, perhaps advancing RADAR. The importance of Quantum Computing remains a huge question mark. Our field's great honest physicist Tim Palmer at Oxford had some choice thoughts about that (with a BAMS article a few years ago already and a great book). Even if a climate-relevant state space (2N entangled complex numbers) can be attained, the output is limited to N bits! He says Hilbert's name was taken in vain for the Space that bears it, quoting him: "The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality." His latest paper shows how this may set fundamental limits on quantum computing.
My final glimpse of the sociology of it all was a group tour of a nonprofit regional consortium called Elevate Quantum, a bolus of money from the 2024 Chips and Science Act trying to realize itself as employees and facilities. They are ready (aching) for startups or research partners. It all fits in the renovated old office building of a 20-acre campus of a rusting oil-shale research factory, whose demolition is prevented by a Great Horned Owl I hereby name Qubit. In a noisy lab-room, a machine jauntily called a "fridge" has a chamber at 13 mK, the coldest place in the universe, where up to 21 entangled atoms can be prepared to compute out their little wavefunction at the speed of light. Users talk to these frigid atoms through a laptop from anywhere; of course it is all real and not a hoax or simulation and will create a lot of good-paying blue collar jobs to boot.
Sep 09: Dr. Hilary Close
Department of Ocean Sciences, Rosenstiel School
(Candidate for Promotion)
Sep 16: AVAILABLE
Sep 23: AVAILABLE
Sep 30: AVAILABLE
Oct 07: AVAILABLE
Oct 14: AVAILABLE
Oct 21: Dr. Roni Avissar
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Rosenstiel School
Oct 28: AVAILABLE
Nov 04: Dr. Philip Tuchen
Department of Ocean Sciences, Rosenstiel School
Nov 11: Dr. Peisen Tan
NOAA AOML / Mississippi State University
Nov 18: Dr. Rana Fine
Prof. Emerita, Department of Ocean Sciences, Rosenstiel School
Nov 25: NO SEMINAR (Thanksgiving Recess)
Dec 02: Madeleine Dawson
Department of Ocean Sciences, Rosenstiel School
(1-hour OCE student seminar)
Dec 09: Gabrielle Ricche
Department of Ocean Sciences, Rosenstiel School
(1-hour OCE student seminar)
