The abstract submission deadline for the SPARC General Assmebly (1-5 October 2018 in Kyoto, Japan) has been extended.

>> Submit abstract now

The Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report (TOAR) is a current IGAC activity with a mission to provide the research community with an up-to-date scientific assessment of tropospheric ozone’s global distribution and trends from the surface to the tropopause.

Guided by this mission, TOAR has two goals:

1. Produce the first tropospheric ozone assessment report using all available surface observations and based on the peer-reviewed literature and new analyses.
2. Generate easily accessible, documented data on ozone exposure and dose metrics at hundreds of measurement sites around the world (urban and non-urban), freely accessible for research on the global-scale impact of ozone on climate, human health and crop/ecosystem productivity.

The report is being written as a series of eight stand-alone publications to be submitted for peer-review to Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, an open-access, non-profit science journal founded by five US research Universities and published by University of California Press. As the papers become available each will be posted to the TOAR comment webpage for a 30-day open comment period. We invite members of the atmospheric and biological sciences communities as well as the general public to read the papers and provide comments if they wish to do so.

One more TOAR paper has just become available for open comment:

Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report: Tropospheric ozone observations – How well do we know tropospheric ozone changes?

Author Team: David Tarasick, Ian E. Galbally, Owen R. Cooper, Martin G. Schultz, Gerard Ancellet, Thierry Leblanc, Tim J. Wallington, Jerry Ziemke, Xiong Liu, Martin Steinbacher, Johannes Staehelin, Corinne Vigouroux, James Hannigan, Omaira García, Gilles Foret, Prodromos Zanis, Elizabeth Weatherhead, Irina Petropavlovskikh, Helen Worden, Mohammed Osman, Jane Liu, Meiyun Lin, Maria Granados-Muñoz, Anne M. Thompson, Samuel J. Oltmans, Juan Cuesta, Gaelle Dufour, Valerie Thouret, Birgit Hassler and Thomas Trickl

The paper can be downloaded from: http://igacproject.org/activities/TOAR/OpenComments

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

Overview of experiment design and comparison of models participating in phase 1 of the SPARC Quasi-Biennial Oscillation initiative (QBOi). By N. Butchart et al. in Geoscientific Model Development.

How Sudden Stratospheric Warming Affects the Whole Atmosphere. By N.M. Pedatella et al. in Earth & Space Science News.

Spring Arctic Atmospheric Preconditioning: Do Not Rule Out Shortwave Radiation Just Yet. By J. Sedlar in the Journal of Climate.

Discussion papers – open for comment

Requirements for a global data infrastructure in support of CMIP6. By V. Balaji et al. in Geoscientific Model Development Discussions.

WMO GAW is currently seeking input on the draft publication entitled Low-cost sensors for the measurement of atmospheric composition: overview of topic and future applications. Comments will be accepted until 31 March 2018.

To turn in comments, please use the excel spread sheet from the link below and send your comments via email to

Download draft (PDF)

Download comment file (MS Excel)

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

MJO prediction skill of the subseasonal-to-seasonal prediction models. By Y. Lim, S-W Son, and D. Kim in the Journal of Climate.

Northern Hemisphere Stratospheric Ozone Depletion Caused by Solar Proton Events: The Role of the Polar Vortex. By M.H. Denton et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Rossby Wave Propagation into the Northern Hemisphere Stratosphere: The Role of Zonal Phase Speed. By D.I.V. Domeisen, O. Martius, and B. Jiménez-Esteve. In the Geophysical Research Letters.

Does extreme El Niño have a different effect on the stratosphere in boreal winter than its moderate counterpart? By X. Zhou et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

On the Origin of the Solar Cycle Modulation of the Southern Annular Mode. By Y. Kuroda in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

On the Linkage Between the Asian Summer Monsoon and Tropopause Folds. By Y. Wu et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Discussion papers – open for comment

Gravity Waves excited during a Minor Sudden Stratospheric Warming. By A. Dörnbrack et al. in Atmospheric Chemsitry and Physics Discussions.

Polar stratospheric cloud climatology based on CALIPSO spaceborne lidar measurements from 2006–2017. By M.C. Pitts, L.R. Poole, and R. Gonzalez in Atmospheric Chamistry and Physics Discussions.

Limited angle tomography of mesoscale gravity waves by the infrared limb-sounder GLORIA. By I. kirsch et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions.

The 20th Conference on the Middle Atmosphere will take place 6-10 January 2019 in Phoenix, Arizona at the AMS annual meeting.  We are asking if you would please consider proposing a session topic.  The deadline is April 1st.  If you think your proposed session would be a good candidate for a joint session with another conference (such as Climate Variability and Change or Atmospheric Chemistry), please make a note in the Comments section.

Submission portal: https://ams.confex.com/ams/2019Annual/cfs.cgi

Submission deadline: 1 April

We hope to see you in Phoenix next January!

Amy Butler and Sean Davis (co-organizers)

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

Changes in stratospheric transport and mixing during sudden stratospheric warmings. By A. de la Cámara, M. Abalos, and P. Hitchcock in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Downward Wave Coupling between the Stratosphere and Troposphere under Future Anthropogenic Climate Change. By S.W. Lubis et al in the Journal of Climate.

Atmospheric QBO and ENSO indices with high vertical resolution from GNSS radio occultation temperature measurements. By H. Wilhelmsen et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Verification in the presence of observation errors: Bayesian point of view. By L. Duc and K. Saito in the Quaterly Journal of the Royal meteorological Society.

Dynamical core in atmospheric model does matter in the simulation of Arctic climate. By S.-Y. Jun, S.-J. Choi, and B.-M. Kim in the Geophysical Research Letters.

QBO-MJO Connection. By C. Zhang, and B. Zhang in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Implications of potential future grand solar minimum for ozone layer and climate. By P. Arsenovic et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The International Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution (iCACGP) invites nominations for the Paul Crutzen Award for early career scientists 2018.

Details about the prize and nomination procedure can be found here (download PDF).

The deadline for submission of the full package of nominations is the 10 June 2018. The decision will be announced by mid-July 2018.

The Joint Scientific Committee (JSC) of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) provides scientific guidance in all aspects of the World Climate Research Programme, in line with the overall aims and interests of the sponsoring organizations.

For the upcoming membership term, from January 2019 to December 2022, (self-)nominations are sought from the global climate research community. JSC members are to be selected for their scientific knowledge, capability and breadth of vision. The JSC aims to be an inclusive source of leadership for international climate research and seeks nominations of mid- to senior-career researchers from around the globe. The deadline to submit nominations is 6 April 2018.

The membership of the JSC shall aim to include a balanced representation of relevant disciplines in atmospheric, oceanic, hydrological and polar sciences. The JSC guides the overarching objectives and priorities of WCRP, in agreement with the sponsoring organizations and the WCRP sponsors’ agreement (subject to any future revisions thereof through the sponsoring organizations), as well as in line with the upcoming WCRP Strategic and Implementation Plans.

Target expertise:

• Climate Policy
• Climate Services
• Climate Risk
• Scenario Development
• Tropical Climate
• Climate System Modelling
• Sea level Change
• Seasonal Prediction
• Decadal Prediction
• Oceanography
• Hydrology
• Atmospheric Chemistry
• Terrestrial System and/or Ecology
• Biogeochemistry
• Predictability
• Extremes Across Timescales
• Climate Observations and Data Systems
• Cryosphere
• Stratospheric Dynamics

Please submit self-nominations by Friday 6 April 2018 using the following google form: https://goo.gl/Gjg7JA

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

Predictability of Sudden Stratospheric Warmings in the ECMWF extended range forecast system. By A.Y. Karpechko in the Monthly Waether Review.

The Extrapolar SWIFT model (version 1.0): fast stratospheric ozone chemistry for global climate models. By D. Kreyling et al. in Geoscientific Model Development.

Historical tropospheric and stratospheric ozone radiative forcing using the CMIP6 database. By R.Checa-Garcia et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Climate Models Are Uncertain, but We Can Do Something About It. By K.S. Carslaw, et al. in EOS.

First Successful Hindcasts of the 2016 Disruption of the Stratospheric Quasi-biennial Oscillation. By S. Watanabe et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Statistical analysis of inertial gravity wave parameters in the lower stratosphere over Northern China. By L. Chen, et al. in Climate Dynamics.

The Effects of Deep Convection on Regional Temperature Structure in the Tropical Upper Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere. By B.R. Johnston, F. Xie, and C. Liu in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

First Reprocessing of Southern Hemisphere ADditional OZonesondes (SHADOZ) Profile Records: 3. Uncertainty in Ozone Profile and Total Column. By J.C. Witte et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.