The deadline is 23 June 2017.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is seeking nominations for individuals to serve on the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC). BASC is the focal point within the National Academies for activities related to the atmospheric, meteorological, and climate sciences, including issues related to technology, policy, applications, and services. The Board serves as a source for objective, independent advice to the federal government and others. Through its board meetings, study committees, and convening functions, BASC strives to:

• advance understanding of atmospheric science, meteorology, and climate;
• foster application of this knowledge to benefit the public;
• guide US research programs so they address key scientific opportunities and the needs of the nation; and
• ensure that the voice of the science community is considered in government planning and decision making.

Activities include program and document reviews, assistance in setting priorities and identifying research opportunities, evaluation of technologies and methodologies, analyses of controversial and nationally important topics, integration of interdisciplinary information, and other tasks.

BASC’s membership is broadly constituted to include experts in atmospheric composition and chemistry, meteorological sciences, climate variability and change, atmospheric interactions with the land/ocean/cryosphere, and observing and forecasting systems and approaches, as well as those with other types of relevant, practical experience.

Members typically serve 3-year terms with an option to reappoint after the first term. Nominations are sought for the next rotation in membership to be conducted later this summer.

This is a great chance to give direction to future atmospheric and climate sciences in the US! The deadline for nominations is Friday, June 23.

Submit a nomination.

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

Estimation of gravity wave parameters to alleviate the delay in the Antarctic vortex breakup in general circulation models. By G. Scheffler and M. Pulido in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Energy spectra and inertia-gravity waves in global analyses. By N. Zagar et al. in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

A global enhancement of hydrogen cyanide in the lower stratosphere throughout 2016. By P.E. Sheese et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.

Depletion of ozone and reservoir species of chlorine and nitrogen oxide in the lower Antarctic polar vortex measured from aircraft. By T. Jurkat et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.

Internal Variability in Simulated and Observed Tropical Tropospheric Temperature Trends. By L. Suárez-Gutiérrez et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.

Madden-Julian Oscillation Prediction and Teleconnections in the S2S Database. By F. Vitart in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Eddy-driven jet sensitivity to diabatic heating in an idealized GCM. By H.S. Baker et al. in the Journal of Climate.

Key issues for seamless integrated chemistry-meteorology modeling. By A. Baklanov et al. in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Discussion papers – open for comment

Diurnal variations of BrONO₂ observed by MIPAS-B at mid-latitudes and in the Arctic. By G. Wetzel et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Heterogeneous reaction of HO₂ with airborne TiO₂ particles and its implication for climate change mitigation strategies. By D.R. Moon et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Reanalysis comparisons of upper tropospheric/lower stratospheric jets and multiple tropopauses. By G.L. Manney et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Ozone Comparison between Pandora #34, Dobson #061, OMI, and OMPS at Boulder Colorado for the period December 2013–December 2016. By J. Herman et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions.

Diagnosing CH₄ models using the equivalent length in the stratosphere. By Z. Wang et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Assessment of upper tropospheric and stratospheric water vapour and ozone in reanalyses as part of S-RIP. By S.M. Davis et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Assessing stratospheric transport in the CMAM30 simulations using ACE-FTS measurements. By F. Kolonjari et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Vertical profile of tropospheric ozone derived from synergetic retrieval using three different wavelength ranges, UV, IR, and Microwave: sensitivity study for satellite observation. By Y. Kasai et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions.

Climate engineering, also called geoengineering, is the idea of deliberately intervening in Earth’s global radiation budget with the goal of reducing some of the risks of accumulating greenhouse gases. The two most frequently discussed possibilities are injecting aerosols into the stratosphere or adding aerosols to low marine clouds, both of which would reflect more sunlight to space; other possibilities include artificially thinning cirrus cloud cover to increasing outgoing longwave radiation. This conference will focus on the scientific questions associated with this set of technologies with the goal of fostering a better understanding of their efficacy and risks.

Conference organisers are David Keith and Alan Robock.

The conference will be held on 23-28 July 2017 at Sunday River Newry, ME, USA. Note that applications for this meeting must be submitted by 25 June 2017.

Find website.

Gordon conference have been held since the 1930s, are among the most prestigious general series of scientific conferences. The Gordon organization now has more than 200 conferences a year. The conferences are primarily US-based though they often get a global audience, and now the locations are gradually extending globally. The hallmark of the conferences is that they bring together a relatively small group of people, typically about 150, in an informal and isolated setting. The conferences feature a small number of long talks with extended time for questions by speakers who are typically leaders in the field and open-ended poster sessions at which all participate. There is a substantial amount of unscheduled time each day which allows unstructured interaction between participants. The conferences often help to define a scientific field. Once established they often continue for decades with conference chair people selected by a vote of the participants. The conferences operate under the "Chatham House Rule," free discussion with no attribution and limited press.

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

The semiannual oscillation of the tropical zonal wind in the middle atmosphere derived from satellite geopotential height retrievals. By A.K. Smith et al. in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

Local wave activity budgets of the wintertime Northern Hemisphere: Implication for the Pacific and Atlantic storm tracks. By C.S.Y. Huang and N. Nakamura in Geophysical Research Letters.

Trace gas composition in the Asian summer monsoon anticyclone: a case study based on aircraft observations and model simulations. By K.-D. Gottschaldt et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The robustness of future changes in Northern Hemisphere blocking: a large ensemble projection with multiple sea surface temperature patterns. By M. Matsueda and H. Endo in Geophysical Research Letters.

In Retrospect: Half a century of robust climate models. By P. Forster in Nature.

Do differences in future sulfate emission pathways matter for near-term climate? A case study for the Asian monsoon. By R.E. Bartlett et al. in Climate Dynamics.

Enhanced stratospheric water vapor over the summertime continental United States and the role of overshooting convection. By R.L. Herman et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The Impact on the Ozone Layer from NOx Produced by Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes. By E.S. Cramer et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.

Discussion papers – open for comment

Impacts of Stratospheric Sulfate Geoengineering on Tropospheric Ozone. By L. Xia et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Equatorward dispersion of high-latitude volcanic plume and its relation to the Asian summer monsoon: a case study of the Sarychev eruption in 2009. By X. Wu et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

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.

Two new TOAR papers are now available for open comment:

Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report: Present day ozone distribution and trends relevant to human health
Chapter Writing Team: Zoë L. Fleming, Ruth M. Doherty, Erika von Schneidemesser, Christopher S. Malley, Owen. R Cooper, Joseph P. Pinto, Xiaobin Xu, Augustin Colette, David Simpson, Martin G. Schultz, Samera Hamad, Allen S. Lefohn, Raeesa Moolla, Sverre Solberg, Zhaozhong Feng

Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report: Assessment of global-scale model performance for global and regional ozone distributions, variability, and trends
Chapter Writing Team: P. J. Young, V. Naik, A. M. Fiore, A. Gaudel, J. Guo, M. Y. Lin, J. Neu, D. D. Parrish, H. E. Rieder, J. L. Schnell, S. Tilmes, O. Wild, L. Zhang, J. Brandt, A. Delcloo, R. M. Doherty, C. Geels, M. I. Hegglin, L. Hu, U. Im, R. Kumar, A. Luhar, L. Murray, D. Plummer, J. Rodriguez, A. Saiz-Lopez, M. G. Schultz, M. Woodhouse, G. Zeng, and J. Ziemke

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

The radiative role of ozone and water vapour in the annual temperature cycle in the tropical tropopause layer. By A. Ming et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The Climate-system Historical Forecast Project: providing open access to seasonal forecast ensembles from centers around the globe. By A.M. Tompkins et al. in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Discussion papers – open for comment

An island in the stratosphere – On the enhanced annual variation of water vapour in the middle and upper stratosphere in the southern tropics and subtropics. By S. Lossow et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Analyzing trace gas filaments in the Ex-UTLS by 4D-variational assimilation of airborne tomographic retrievals. By A. Vogel et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

The US Dobson Station Network Data Record Prior to 2015, Re-evaluation of NDACC and WOUDC archived records with WinDobson processing software. By R.D. Evans et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

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

Global large-scale stratosphere–troposphere exchange in modern reanalyses. By A.C. Boothe and C.R. Homeyer in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The Role of Natural Climate Variability in Recent Tropical Expansion. By R.J. Allen And M. Kovilakam in the Journal of Climate.

First reprocessing of Southern Hemisphere ADditional OZonesondes (SHADOZ) profile records (1998-2015) 1: Methodology and evaluation. By J.C. Witte et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Late 21st Century Changes in the Mid-latitude Atmospheric Circulation in the CESM Large Ensemble. By Y. Peings et al. in the Journal of Climate.

The viability of trajectory analysis for diagnosing dynamical and chemical influences on ozone concentrations in the UTLS. By J.W. Bergman et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Local wave activity and the onset of blocking along a potential vorticity front. By N. Nakamura and C.S.Y. Huang in the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences.

A study of different frequencies of major stratospheric sudden warmings in CMIP5 historical simulations. By M. Taguchi in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Relevant Climate Response Tests for Stratospheric Aerosol Injection: A Combined Ethical and Scientific Analysis. By A. Lenferna et al. in Earth’s Future.

The stratospheric changes inferred from 10 years of AIRS and AMSU-A radiances. By F. Pan et al. in the Journal of Climate.

Large-Scale Control of the Lower Stratosphere on Variability of Tropical Cyclone Intensity. By M. Ferrara et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.

Merged ozone profiles from four MIPAS processors. By A. Laeng et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Discussion papers – open for comment

Comparison of large-scale dynamical variability in the extratropical stratosphere among the JRA-55 family data sets. By M. Taguchi in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

An update on ozone profile trends for the period 2000 to 2016. By W. Steinbrecht et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

An assessment of Ozone Mini-holes Representation in Reanalyses Over the Northern Hemisphere. By L. Millan and G. Manney in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Attribution of recent ozone changes in the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes using statistical analysis and chemistry-climate model simulations. By G. Zeng et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Registration deadline: 7 July 2017
Abstract Decision: 14 July 2017

The objective of the joint SPARC Dynamics & Observations Workshop is to gather together researchers to better understand the processes and patterns coupling the tropical troposphere, stratosphere and beyond.

An understanding will be gained by focusing on the interplay between large-scale phenomena such as the MJO, monsoons, tropical cyclones and QBO, their association with moist convection and its large scale organization, and their representation within simple and complex models.

The main activities of the joint meeting will include:

• reporting results from the joint model experiments and analyses that were planned at the 2015 & 2016 SPARC QBO workshops,
• exploring opportunities for improved awareness, dissemination and exploitation of existing networks of high resolution radiosonde data, and
• further the science of stratosphere-troposphere coupling within the tropics.

The Workshop will be held on 9-14 October 2017 within the Maskawa Building for Education and Research, at Kyoto University.

The Workshop is an outflow of the SPARC QBOi (Quasi-Biennial Oscillation Initiative), FISAPS (Fine Scale Atmospheric Processes and Structures), and SATIO-TCS (Stratospheric And Tropospheric Influences On Tropical Convective Systems) activities.

Please prepare your abstract and register it at the registration page.

Find more details here.

The SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP) is conducting a survey to determine user requirements for future reanalysis data products. Two Google documents were set up, one asking for the pressure/isentropic levels needed for research, the other document asking which additional data you need (‘wish list’, e.g. more isentropic and pressure levels, potential vorticity on model levels, gravity wave drag diagnostics, etc.).

Researchers interested in reanalysis data are most welcome to participate in this survey before 30 June 2017.

Isentropic and Pressure Level Data Needs

‘Wish List’

David Carlson, Director of the secretariat of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), SPARC’s parent organisation, resigns from WCRP.

In his message to the WCRP community he states that "even as we apply our skills and tools to careful detection, quantification and prediction of (climate) change we remain too firmly wedded to existing structures and acronyms….We must persistently question our internal structures just as much as we persistently press for improved models or improved understanding". David also encourages WCRP to pay greater attention to our carbon impact – in research but also in our practices and working modalities amongst others.

Read the full message to the WCRP community.