2nd Workshop on: Stratospheric Sulfur and its Role in Climate in Potsdam, Germany – 25-28 April 2016

Deadline for abstract submission: 1 February 2016
Deadline for registration: 21 April 2016

The workshop theme is the stratospheric sulfur burden and seeks to address questions like:

What can be established through gas and particle phase measurements?

What processes are instrumental in causing variations in the stratospheric sulfur burden, e. g. volcanoes, the summer Asian monsoon, and other processes that lead to cross-tropopause transport?

How well are these processes captured by measurements and by models?

First results of the SSiRC Model and data Intercomparison Project will also be discussed. While contributions on a range of topics around the broad theme of stratospheric sulfur and its role in climate are welcome, the workshop will be organized around the following primary themes:

The sulfur burden

  • Measurements of gas precursors (e.g., SO2, COS)
  • Measurements of particle phase sulfur in the stratosphere and upper troposphere
  • Analyses of changes and interannual variability of these components
  • Climate model sulfur burden and the processes affecting its partitioning

Volcanoes and stratospheric aerosol variability

  • The impact of sulfur injection into the stratosphere by volcanic eruptions on climate
  • How well do global aerosol models do in reproducing observations from the last decades?
  • Preparing for the next major volcanic eruption: How well do models reproduce the effects from past large eruptions and how can they be improved? What measurements are needed? How do we do it?

The upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UTLS)

  • The role of the Summer Asian Monsoon in the UTLS aerosol budget
  • Studies of the climate response to variations in UTLS aerosol
  • Process studies of sulfur chemistry, gas to particle conversion, microphysics and aerosol removal and the interactions with dynamics and transport in the tropical troposphere, the Tropical Tropopause Layer and the global UTLS and parameterization schemes for these processes suitable for global models.

The meeting occurs the week following the EGU as a convenience to those travelling from outside Europe who may wish to attend both. A SSiRC related session for the EGU (led by Graham Mann) has been proposed.

Find more details on the SSiRC website.

Please address questions to Larry Thomason or Stefanie Kremser.