Dear SPARC community,

Please find below the most recent SPARC eNews.

The SPARC website is updated frequently, so feel free to check for the most recent news items regularly. If you wish to have anything posted in the news section on the website, please don’t hesitate to contact us: office@sparc-climate.org.

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SPARC News – November 2015
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23 October 2015
Reminder: Article submission for the January 2016 issue of the SPARC newsletter
The SPARC newsletter is published twice per year and includes science articles as well as workshop reports. Register on the SPARC website if you aren’t already receiving the SPARC newsletter (see link below). Please contact the SPARC Office should you be interested in submitting an article for the SPARC newsletter. The deadline for the January 2016 issue is 15 November.
> http://www.aparc-climate.org/publications/newsletter/
> Guidelines for authors

22 October 2015
Request for input: Decadal survey in Earth science applications from space
The US National Academy of Sciences is preparing for the Decadal Survey of Earth Science Applications from Space, and is requesting short (1500 word) white papers from the broad scientific community with a deadline of 2 November.
> http://www.aparc-climate.org/news/news/news/2015/10/22/request-for-input-decadal-survey-in-earth-science-applications-from-space/

14 October 2015
Vacancies: Post-doctoral fellowships (3 positions): Climate change information for regions
Climate System Analysis Group, Fractal Programme, Cape Town, South Africa
> http://www.aparc-climate.org/vacancies/

6 October 2015
Call for session proposals: IAMAS-IAPSO-IAGA Conference, Capetown, South Africa, 27 August-1 September 2017
Please contact the SPARC Office (office@sparc-climate.org) if you are interested in proposing a session.
> http://www.aparc-climate.org/news/news/news/2015/10/06/iamas-iapso-iaga-conference-in-capetown-south-africa-from-27-august-to-1-september-2017/

Find SPARC news.

Find news from WCRP, CliC, CLIVAR and GEWEX.

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Upcoming SPARC meetings 

4-6 November 2015
SOLARIS-HEPPA Working Group Meeting, Boulder, CO, USA

9-13 November 2015
Regional Workshop on chemical and physical processes in the climate system AND
23rd SPARC Scientific Steering Group meeting (by invitation), Boulder, CO, USA

8-11 December 2015
WAVAS II Working Group Meeting, Boulder, CO, USA

16-19 February 2016
SPARC workshop on Stratospheric Change and its Role in Climate Prediction (SHARP), Berlin, Germany
Abstract submission deadline: 15 November 2015
Registration deadline: 15 December 2015

7-11 March 2016
Workshop on dynamics, transport and chemistry of the UTLS Asian monsoon, Boulder, CO, USA
Abstract submission deadline: 15 December 2015
Registration deadline: 15 December 2015

6-8 April 2016
Workshop on atmospheric blocking, Reading, UK
Abstract submission deadline: 10 December 2015
Registration deadline: 10 February 2016

Find all SPARC meetings.

Upcoming SPARC-related meetings

9-13 November 2015
2nd Symposium of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR): Water and Life in the Universe, Foz da Iguacu, Parana, Brazil

16-20 November 2015
CLIVAR-ICTP International Workshop on Decadal Climate Variability, Trieste, Italy

14-18 December 2015
AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, California, USA

10-14 January 2016
AMS 96th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

2-4 March 2016
Global Climate Observation: The road to the future, Amsterdam, Netherlands

5-15 April 2016
Polar Prediction School, Abisko Scientific Research Station, Sweden

Find more SPARC-related meetings.

Find more meetings organised by the WCRP community.

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Science update

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

October 2015

• Relative drifts and biases between six ozone limb satellite measurements from the last decade. By N. Rahpoe et al in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.
• Weather chains during the 2013/2014 winter and their significance for seasonal prediction. By H.W. Davies in Nature Geoscience.
• Southward shift of the northern tropical belt from 1945 to 1980. By S. Brönniman et al. in Nature Geoscience.
• Increase in HFC-134a emissions in response to the success of the Montreal Protocol. By A. Fortems-Cheiney et al in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
• A perturbed parameter model ensemble to investigate Mt. Pinatubo’s 1991 initial sulfur mass emission. By J.X. Sheng et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• Transport pathways of peroxyacetyl nitrate in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere from different monsoon systems during the summer monsoon season. By S. Fadnavis et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• The detectability of climate engineering. By G. Bürger and U. Cubasch in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
• On the comparison between seasonal predictive skill of global circulation models: coupled versus uncoupled. By A.F. Beraki et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
• Positive trends in Southern Hemisphere carbonyl sulfide (OCS). By S. Kremser et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Zonally uniform tidal oscillations in the tropical stratosphere. By T. Sakazaki et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.
• The direct fitting approach for total ozone column retrievals: a sensitivity study on GOME-2/MetOp-A measurements. By A. Wassmann et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.
• Influences of source conditions on mountain wave penetration into the stratosphere and mesosphere. By B. Kaifler et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Ozone depletion by hydrofluorocarbons. By M.M. Hurwitz et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Modelling marine emissions and atmospheric distributions of halocarbons and dimethyl sulfide: the influence of prescribed water concentration vs. prescribed emissions. By S.T. Lennartz et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• Optimization of the GSFC TROPOZ DIAL retrieval using synthetic lidar returns and ozonesondes – Part 1: Algorithm validation. By J.T. Sullivan et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.
• The Climate Change Web Portal: a system to access and display climate and earth system model output from the CMIP5 archive. By J.D. Scott et al. in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
• Concentric gravity waves over Northern China observed by an airglow imager network and satellites. By J. Xu et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
• Origins of Climate Model Discrepancies in Atmospheric Shortwave Absorption and Global Precipitation Changes. By B. Fildier and W.D. Collins in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Evaluating a new homogeneous total ozone climate data record from GOME/ERS-2, SCIAMACHY/Envisat and GOME-2/MetOp-A. By M.E. Koukouli et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
• Consistent decrease in North Atlantic Tropical Cyclone frequency following major volcanic eruptions in the last 3 centuries. By A. Guevara-Murua et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Global patterns of solar influence on high cloud cover. By M. Dima and M. Voiculescu in Climate Dynamics.
• The impacts of volcanic aerosol on stratospheric ozone and the Northern Hemisphere polar vortex: separating radiative-dynamical changes from direct effects due to enhanced aerosol heterogeneous chemistry. By S. Muthers et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• Trend analysis of the 20-year time series of stratospheric ozone profiles observed by the GROMOS microwave radiometer at Bern. By L. Moreira et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• Revisiting the evidence of increasing springtime ozone mixing ratios in the free troposphere over western North America. By M. Lin et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Blocking variability: Arctic Amplification versus Arctic Oscillation. By P. Hassanzadeh and Z. Kuang  in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Quantifying the uncertainty of the annular mode time scale and the role of the stratosphere. By J. Kim and T. Reichler in Climate Dynamics.
• Abrupt reversal in emissions and atmospheric abundance of HCFC-133a (CF₃CH₂Cl). By M.K. Vollmer et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.
• A minimum standard for publishing computational results in the weather and climate sciences. By D. Irving in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
• Can cirrus cloud seeding be used for geoengineering? By J.E. Penner et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Multigrid solvers and multigrid preconditioners for the solution of variational data assimilation problems. By L. Debreu et al. in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.
• Stratosphere–troposphere exchange (STE) in the vicinity of North Atlantic cyclones. By P. Ruetter et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• Altitude misestimation caused by the Vaisala RS80 pressure bias and its impact on meteorological profiles. By Y. Inai et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

September 2015

• 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.
• The GOME-type Total Ozone Essential Climate Variable (GTO-ECV) data record from the ESA Climate Change Initiative. By M. Coldewey-Egbers et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.
• Global OZone Chemistry And Related trace gas Data records for the Stratosphere (GOZCARDS): methodology and sample results with a focus on HCl, H₂O, and O₃. By L. Froidevaux et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• Is a high-altitude meteorological analysis necessary to simulate thermosphere-stratosphere coupling? By D.E. Siskind et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
• Multi-Sensor Profiling of a Concentric Gravity Wave Event Propagating from the Troposphere to the Ionosphere. By I. Azeem et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Variability in Antarctic ozone loss in the last decade (2004–2013): high-resolution simulations compared to Aura MLS observations. By J. Kuttipurath et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• Observational evidence of strengthening of the Brewer-Dobson circulation since 1980. By Q. Fu et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
• Inter-model diversity in jet stream changes and its relation to Arctic climate in CMIP5. By Y. Yim et al. in Climate Dynamics.
• A decomposition of ENSO’s impacts on the northern winter stratosphere: competing effect of SST forcing in the tropical Indian Ocean. By J. Rao and R. Ren in Climate Dynamics.
• Observational evidence of the influence of Antarctic stratospheric ozone variability on middle atmosphere dynamics. By N. Venkateswara Rao et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Convective Transport of Trace Species Observed During the Stratosphere-Troposphere Analyses of Regional Transport 2008 Experiment (START08). By L.W. Siu et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
• Tropospheric Biennial Oscillation (TBO) indistinguishable from white noise. By M.F. Stuecker et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Signal of Central Pacific El Niño in the Southern Hemispheric stratosphere during austral spring. By C. Yang et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
• Sustainable early-career networks. By F. Rauser et al. in Nature Geoscience.
• Effect of tropical cyclones on the tropical tropopause parameters observed using COSMIC GPS RO data. By S. Ravindra Babu et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• Comparing the impacts of tropical SST variability and polar stratospheric ozone loss on the Southern Ocean westerly winds. By D.P. Schneider et al. in the Journal of Climate.
• A Match-based approach to the estimation of polar stratospheric ozone loss using Aura Microwave Limb Sounder observations. By N.J. livesey et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• Estimate of carbonyl sulfide tropical oceanic surface fluxes using aura tropospheric emission spectrometer observations. By L. Kuai et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
• A minor sudden stratospheric warming with a major impact: Transport and polar processing in the 2014/2015 Arctic winter. By G.L. Manney et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Can a coupled meteorology–chemistry model reproduce the historical trend in aerosol direct radiative effects over the Northern Hemisphere? By J. Xing et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• Past changes in the vertical distribution of ozone – Part 3: Analysis and interpretation of trends. By N.R.P. Harris et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• Ensemble data assimilation of total column ozone using a coupled meteorology–chemistry model and its impact on the structure of Typhoon Nabi (2005). By S. Lim et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
• Atmospheric impact of Arctic sea ice loss in a coupled ocean-atmosphere simulation. By R.E. Petrie et al. in the Journal of Climate.
• Linear trends and closures of 10-year observations of AIRS stratospheric channels. By F. Pan et al. in the Journal of Climate.

Discussion Papers – open for comment: 

• A Lagrangian description on the troposphere-to-stratosphere transport changes associated with the stratospheric water drop around the year 2000. By F. Hasebe and T. Noguchi in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• Variational data assimilation for the optimized ozone initial state and the short-time forecasting. By S.-Y. Park et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• Inter-comparison of stratospheric mean-meridional circulation and eddy mixing among six reanalysis datasets. By K. Miyazaki et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• Ozone variability in the troposphere and the stratosphere from the first six years of IASI observations (2008–2013). By C. Wespes et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• Transport across the tropical tropopause layer and convection. By A.-S. Tissier and B. Legras in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• Using beryllium-7 to assess cross-tropopause transport in global models. By H. Liu et al in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• Transport pathways from the Asian monsoon anticyclone to the stratosphere. By H. Garny and W. J. Randel in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• Water vapour variability in the high-latitude upper troposphere – Part 2: Impact of volcanic emissions. By C.E. Sioris et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• Improved simulation of tropospheric ozone by a global-multi-regional two-way coupling model system. By Y.-Y. Yan et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• The vertical distribution of volcanic SO₂ plumes measured by IASI. By E. Carboni et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• The millennium water vapour drop in chemistry-climate model simulations. By S. Brinkop et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• Stratospheric ozone change and related climate impacts over 1850–2100 as modelled by the ACCMIP ensemble. By F. Iglesias-Suarez et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• Global and zonal tropospheric ozone variations from 2003–2011 as seen by SCIAMACHY. By F. Ebojie et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• The latitudinal structure of recent changes in the boreal Brewer–Dobson circulation. By C. Shi et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
• Equatorial middle atmospheric chemical composition changes during sudden stratospheric warming events. By O. Nath and S. Sridharan in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Find older Science Updates at >http://www.aparc-climate.org/news/

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For feedback or input to the next eNews edition please contact:
office@sparc-climate.org

SPARC Office
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www.sparc-climate.org