A selection of new science articles from the past week of interest to the SPARC community (a SPARC Office choice).

Evolving obs4MIPs to Support the Sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). By R. Ferraro et al. in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Mountain waves and wakes generated by South Georgia: implications for drag parametrization. By S.B. Vosper in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Reconciling reported and unreported HFC emissions with atmospheric observations. By M.F. Lunt et al. in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Possible impacts of a future Grand Solar Minimum on climate: Stratospheric and global circulation changes. By A.C. Maycock et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Tropopause Folds in ERA-Interim: Global Climatology and Relation to Extreme Weather Events. By B. Škerlak et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Discussion Papers – open for comment

A solar signal in lower stratospheric water vapour? By T. Schieferdecker et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Trajectory mapping of middle atmospheric water vapor by a mini network of NDACC instruments. By M. Lainer et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Pre-proposals deadline: 1 June 2015

2015 International Opportunities Fund: climate predictability and inter-regional linkages

The Belmont Forum and JPI Climate have launched a call for funding pre-proposals on climate predictability and inter-regional linkages (drivers and mechanisms linking poles & monsoons for societal usefulness of climate services).

This call aims to support medium-size research projects of 3-4 years duration, and recommends a budget of between 1 and 3 M Euros.

Pre-proposals are due by June 1st 2015, and interested researchers are strongly advised to use the online research matching tool.

Find out more here:

http://www.futureearth.org/news/call-proposals-climate-predictability-and-inter-regional-linkages

Deadline for applications for support: 15 May 2015
Deadline for abstract submission: 22 May 2015

The website for registration and abstract submission is now open for the open meeting titled "Composition and Transport in the Tropical Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere" to be held in Boulder, CO on 20-23 July, 2015:

http://esrl.noaa.gov/csd/events/CT3LS/

The meeting will cover the role of the TTL in the climate system and the response of the TTL to future climate change. Susan Solomon and Graeme Stephens have kindly agreed to give invited talks. One aim is to identify open science questions and the future measurement strategies needed to address them, and all participants will be encouraged to come prepared.

The meeting will cover the science topics listed below and include oral and poster presentations. Analyses that combine ground-based, airborne, and satellite measurements, as well as the use of these observations for evaluation of large-scale models, are particularly welcome.

Science topics:

1. Chemistry and transport processes controlling tropical tropospheric and stratospheric composition
2. Measurement and model comparisons
3. Clouds and water vapor

The deadline for abstract submission is May 22, 2015.

Limited support will be available for international participants and for students.
The deadline for applications for support is May 15, 2015.
See the website for more details.

This meeting is held under the auspices of SPARC and IGAC.

Organising committee:

Joan Alexander, Elliot Atlas, Neil Harris, Fumio Hasebe, Eric Jensen, Nathaniel Livesey, Rolf Müller, Laura Pan, Leonhard Pfister, Ross Salawitch, and Troy Thornberry.

Please contact Neil Harris (), Troy Thornberry (), or Eric Jensen () with any questions.

A selection of new science articles from the past week of interest to the SPARC community (a SPARC Office choice).

Lidar observations of gravity wave activity in the middle atmosphere over Davis (69°S, 78°E), Antarctica. By B. Kaifler et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

The impact of current CH₄ and N₂O atmospheric loss process uncertainties on calculated ozone abundances and trends. By E.L. Fleming et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Climate intercomparison of GPS radio occultation, RS90/92 radiosondes and GRUAN from 2002 to 2013. By F. Ladstädter et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

The decrease in mid-stratospheric tropical ozone since 1991. By G.E. Nedoluha et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Distributions of ice supersaturation and ice crystals from airborne observations in relation to upper tropospheric dynamical boundaries. By M. Diao et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Discussion Papers – open for comment

Solar geoengineering using solid aerosol in the stratosphere. By D.K. Weisenstein and D.W. Keith in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Impact of ozone observations on the structure of a tropical cyclone using coupled atmosphere–chemistry data assimilation. By S. Lim et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Grant evaluation deadline: 15 May 2015
Applications deadline: 15 July 2015

This training school is supported by the European Geosciences Union (EGU), organized by the Wegener Center for Climate anf Global Change (WegC) in collaboration with the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) and local organization provided by island of meetings (iom).

Attending the school you will get an overview of the state of the art techniques and methods for detecting and monitoring the volcanic and convective clouds, you will know the different instruments and platforms allowing us to get the best performance in detecting such kind of clouds, you will be projected to the future learning about new missions planned for solving the main issues on these fields, you will be involved in real applications as early warming systems and modeling, you will directly analize the data.

The school topics will range from satellite instruments such as IR sensors or GPS radio occultations to aircraft measuremtents like lidar and radar, from study of ash and SO2 clouds to tropical cyclones, Mediterranean hurricanes, land and maritime convection.

The purpose of the School is to train students with outstanding research interest in the techniques allowing to detect, monitor, and model convective and volcanic clouds, to gain knowledge of the instruments and satellite missions (present and future) and to be able to support such kind of studies.

The extreme atmospheric event cloud detection is a high multidisciplinary and challenging topic since the same techniques and instruments can be used for meteorology, volcanic monitoring, atmospheric physics and climate purposes. Within all these fields there are still many unsolved issues making this school fundamental for creating a new generation of scientists able to use the synergy of several different instruments and techniques.

Each topic includes keynote plenary lectures with in-depth discussion. The school will consist of lectures combined with the practical application of the material covered in the lectures through introductory lab sessions and a set of research problems that will form the core of the School.

Through the introductory keynotes invited lectures, the students will be introduced to all the issues and challenges of the convective and volcanic cloud detection, monitoring and modeling, gaining an overview of the state of the art and the future development.

All the participants are expected to give a short talk or to present a poster about their own research; the selection of the talks will be done through evaluation process as in a regular conference.

The students will leave the school with an increased understanding of the cutting-edge research questions and with the perspective of creating some future projects in this field also thanks to the network created during the school with the lecturers and other students.

IDL and ENVI licences will be offered to all the participants for the period of the course.
15 EGU Grants covering the registration fee, will be awarded to participants coming from developing countries.

Applications:

The School is open to graduate students, PhD students and early career researchers.
More info available at the website.
Registration.

Dates:

Pre-registration is appreciated since there will be a limited space available.
The priority will be given in chronological registration order.
Applications deadline: July 15, 2015

Contacts:

Riccardo Biondi

School fees:

• The school registration fee is 330 € including coffee breaks and teaching material.
• Hotel accommodation available form 140 € for the whole period.
• 15 grants offered by European Geosciences Union are available, covering the registration fee.
• Full board registration fee 660-720 €, thanks to the agreement with the local hotels and restaurants we can offer a full board discounted arrangement depending on the accommodation (sharing room or single room), including accommodation in 3* hotel, breakfasts, lunches (buffet), dinners (first course, second course, side dish, fruit or dessert and drinks), coffee breaks, teaching material and excursion.

Excursions and fun-night:

• Guided visit to the medieval Palazzo della Corgna and the castle of Castiglione del Lago (about 2h)
• Ice cream night
• Fun-run on the lungolago
• Possible tour on saturday (10 October) on the Lake visiting the islands and having lunch on the boat or in a typical resaturant. This tour requires an additional fee and will be organized just if we reach a critical number of participants.

School Location:

Castiglione del Lago (Italy), medieval town located on a peninsula on the coast of Trasimeno Lake, mid-way between Rome and Florence and easily reachable by train and by car from both cities.

A selection of new science articles from the past week of interest to the SPARC community (a SPARC Office choice).

Comparisons of polar processing diagnostics from 34 years of the ERA-Interim and MERRA reanalyses. By Z.D. Lawrence et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The weakening summer circulation in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes. By D. Coumou et al. in Science.

5-day waves in polar stratosphere and mesosphere temperature and mesospheric ice water measured by SOFIE/AIM. By X. Liu et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Discussion Papers – open for comment

A PV-based determination of the transport barrier in the Asian summer monsoon anticyclone. By F. Ploeger et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Sensitivity analysis of the potential impact of discrepancies in stratosphere–troposphere exchange on inferred sources and sinks of CO₂. By F. Deng et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

What is the limit of stratospheric sulfur climate engineering? By U. Niemeier and C. Timmreck in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Comparison of the CMAM30 data set with ACE-FTS and OSIRIS: polar regions. By D. Pendlebury et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Use of North American and European air quality networks to evaluate global chemistry-climate modeling of surface ozone. By J.L. Schnell et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Abstracts and travel requests deadline: 15 July 2015
Registration deadline: 1 Sept 2015

Dates:
7-9 October 2015

Venue:
ESRIN & CNR – Tor Vergata, Frascati/Rome, Italy

Theme:
Process-oriented evaluation and analysis of CCMI-1 simulations

Highlight:
A joint session with the AeroCom community will be held at ESRIN on the first day (7 October) to focus on plans for CMIP6 (AerChemMIP).
The CCMI meeting on the following days (8/9 October) will be held at CNR – Tor Vergata.
Note: Shuttle buses will be arranged for easy access from hotels in Frascati to both meeting locations.

Scope:
The CCMI 2015 workshop will focus on process-oriented evaluation and analysis of the CCMI Phase-1 (CCMI-1) troposphere-stratosphere resolving chemistry-climate model (CCM) simulations using new observations and diagnostics. It will also provide a platform for discussions on model development and common issues experienced with CCMI-1 simulations. Parts of the workshop will be devoted to discussing plans for CCMI contributions to TOAR (the Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report, 2016), the next WMO/UNEP ozone (2018) and IPCC climate assessment (2020), and CMIP6 (2015-2020). More information on CCMI can be found at http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/ccmi/.

Workshop goals:
The goal of the workshop is to bring together modelling groups, experimentalists, and scientists who analyze the data and to provide a platform for discussion of the most recent progress within CCMI.

Topics of the workshop include:

• Model improvement, model development, and common issues with CCMI-1 simulations,
• Process-oriented and observation-based evaluation of the chemistry, dynamics, radiation, and transport in the CCMI-1 simulations,
• Emergent constraints for the evaluation of CCM projections,
• New observations and approaches for improved model evaluation,
• Emission-dependent projections of air quality and impacts on climate/meteorology (and viceversa),
• Emission-dependent projections of the ozone layer and impacts on climate (and vice-versa),
• Effects of stratospheric changes on tropospheric climate and chemistry (and vice-versa),
• Dynamics and chemistry of the Asian monsoon.

Workshop Format:
The meeting will include invited and contributed oral presentations, poster sessions, and breakout-groups focusing on relevant workshop topics.

Deadlines:
Abstracts and travel requests: 15 July 2015
Registration: 1 September 2015

Scientific Organizing Committee:
Michaela Hegglin (U Reading), Jean-François Lamarque (NCAR), Federico Fierli (CNR), Chiara Cagnazzo (CNR), William Collins (U Reading), Michael Schulz (NMI), and the CCMI Scientific Steering Committee.

Local Organizing Committee:
Federico Fierli (CNR), Chiara Cagnazzo (CNR), Francesco Cairo (CNR), Simon Pinnock (ESA), Claus Zehner (ESA)

Website:
http://ccmi-workshop.artov.isac.cnr.it/index.php

A selection of new science articles from the past week of interest to the SPARC community (a SPARC Office choice).

A negative phase shift of the winter AO/NAO due to the recent Arctic sea-ice reduction in late autumn. By T. Nakamura et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

The effects of springtime mid-latitude storms on trace gas composition determined from the MACC reanalysis. By K.E. Knowland et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Rapid transport of East Asian pollution to the deep tropics. By M.J. Ashfold et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The impact of temperature vertical structure on trajectory modeling of stratospheric water vapor. By T. Wang et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The influence of ENSO on northern mid-latitude ozone during the winter to spring transition. By J. Zhang et al. in the Journal of Climate.

Discussion Papers – open for comment

Nonlinear response of modeled stratospheric ozone to changes in greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances in the recent past. By S. Meul et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Stratospheric geoengineering impacts on El Niño/Southern Oscillation. By C.J. Gabriel and A. Robock in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.