Forecast: climate conversations with Michael White

Forecast: climate conversations with Michael White


Latest Episodes

The launch of EarthArXiv
November 01, 2017

Tom Narock and Chris Jackson tell Mike about the new EarthArXiv preprint server.  The show is a bit of an oddball for Forecast, considering that the show’s usual diet is long-format interviews about a scientist’s life and research.

Corinne Le Quéré on the global carbon cycle
October 18, 2017

Deciphering the global carbon cycle is as fascinating as it is difficult. There are carbon fluxes in and out of the planet, all over the place, and at all time scales. Observational gaps are numerous and gaping.

Joe McConnell on the scientific riches in tiny bits of ice
October 04, 2017

Most everyone you’ve heard on Forecast has a twisty career path. But Joe McConnell took an unusually circuitous route to his current role as a leading ice core scientist. Joe bombed as a dishwasher, thrived as a post-hole digger,

Peter Cox’s emergent insights
September 20, 2017

In Episode 54 of Forecast, Peter Cox from the University of Exeter gives Mike the inside story about how the “emergent constraints” approach is reshaping our ability to wring every last drop of useful information from climate models.

Into the woods with Julia Pongratz
September 06, 2017

In episode 53 of Forecast, Mike talks with Julia Pongratz from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology about the role of land cover and land use change in the climate system. Julia began working on the topic with an unbelievable challenge: simulating ...

Antarctic sea ice with Marilyn Raphael
August 23, 2017

In episode 52 of Forecast, Mike and Marilyn Raphael from the University of California at Los Angeles talk about Antarctic sea ice. Arctic sea ice is, on a relative scale, well understood: observations and models show a massive decline.

The hot world of cold ice with Jérôme Chappellaz
August 09, 2017

In episode 51 of Forecast, Jérôme Chappellaz regales Mike with all manner ice core tales. The early days of discovering that methane varies hugely between glacial and interglacial states; profligate consumption of ice in the early days; the intensely c...

The bassline of climate with Julien Emile-Geay
July 26, 2017

In episode 50 of Forecast, Julien Emile-Geay from the University of Southern California calmly presents a somewhat radical world view. Love of jazz as a means of selecting a grad school; universities as revolutionary institutions; pursuit of science as...

The arc of TEX86 with Jessica Tierney
July 12, 2017

In this episode of Forecast, Jess tells Mike about the origins of the TEX86 temperature proxy — an index of membrane lipids produced by mesophilic archaea. The origins in the 1980s in extreme ocean environment; discovery of membrane production in a hug...

Connecting Kevin Anchukaitis
June 28, 2017

Kevin Anchukaitis from the University of Arizona is probably best known for his work on dendroclimatology, but this is changing quickly. Now, his broader interests in the connections among history, political science, archaeology, statistics,