Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2018 June 10

= June 10 =

Coldest city housing a major university
"Major university" being defined as the main campus of any university listed in the "big three" university rankings (ARWU, QS, THE). So far I've found the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which probably takes the cake as Fairbanks has a subarctic climate and is also far from the ocean.—azuki (talk · contribs · email) 14:38, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Surely someplace in Asia. The climate data for Novosibirsk looks colder than Fairbanks, and the city has a bunch of universities. Since I don't know what those ranking initials mean I cannot check. -Arch dude (talk) 16:53, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Murmansk State Technical University looks like a contender. --Wrongfilter (talk) 17:07, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't get me wrong - Alaska can be really cold - but I've visited UAF at Fairbanks in the summer time, and it was muggy and hot - in the sense that Californians were walking around in shorts and tee-shirts.
 * And when it gets cold, it gets really cold - to the extent that human survival requires specialized knowledge. A few miles down the way - (well, as the Alaskans measure it - it's a several-hour automobile journey) - you'll find the Cold Regions Testing Center, where the Army makes sure that you and your ballistic-missile-interceptors still work correctly "...in the snow, extreme cold, and sub-arctic natural environment."  Just imagine what wet snow and extreme thermal cycling will do to carbon-fiber composite or rocket propellant - let alone semiconductor electronics!
 * Fairbanks' climate is quite complicated to summarize. Have a look at their winter and summer weather records!
 * The science of the polar region is amazing, and being immersed in it can help draw focus to the realities of Earth's climate and atmosphere. It's why UAF is such a great place to study climatology.
 * Nimur (talk) 18:13, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * There was a discussion on similar lines on the Humanities desk last year:


 * In my time at university (some obscure place in the East Anglian Fens which was bleeding cold in January when the wind blew in from Siberia), lectures were entirely voluntary. You were expected to attend several "supervisions" (tutorials) per week at which you had to discuss the essay you had submitted a few days earlier, and would get into serious trouble if you didn't attend these. I think scientists had to attend lab sessions as well. I think now a lot of universities require students to attend and keep a log.Paulturtle (talk) 23:31, 19 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm intrigued.  Did you attend the University of East Anglia, whose campus is north of Norwich (a fine city where it never seems to stop snowing in winter) or did you just go to Cambridge? 86.168.123.128 (talk) 09:29, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C1:3180:6501:C141:A0C2:E530:A34 (talk • contribs)
 * And of course, there are the secret Tech tunnels, used by engineers and scientists alike to avoid the sunlight harsh winters of the other Cambridge!!
 * Nimur (talk) 19:23, 10 June 2018 (UTC)


 * The coldest I have found is North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk. It has about 16,000 students, more than the University in Fairbanks, and the mean daily temperature across the year is about 16 degree F, about 10 degrees F colder than Fairbanks. Fairbanks is colder on average than the other places mentioned here, such as Murmansk and Novosibirsk. Looie496 (talk) 20:53, 10 June 2018 (UTC)


 * When I spoke at the University of Tromsø, they claimed to be the Northernmost major university. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 19:51, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The question was about coldest, not farthest north. Based on mean temperature across the year, Tromsø is about 20 degrees F warmer than Yakutsk. Looie496 (talk) 16:16, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * As one of the warmest winters that north it seems like a high probability place for northernmost X records of certain city-size requirements. Apparently major university is probably one of those things in that sweet spot of size. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:54, 11 June 2018 (UTC)