SPARC’s Stratospheric Sulfur and its Role in Climate (SSiRC) activity is sponsoring a workshop focused on facilitating communications and collaborations among scientists responsible for observations of stratospheric aerosol by in situ, ground-based and space-based instruments.

Key goals are to develop strategies for understanding and closing differences among instruments, and for characterizing the continuity of the measurement record as instruments and measurement paradigms change, while keeping in mind the end goal of providing data users, particularly the climate modeling community, more robust and better-characterized data sets than normally obtained from single instruments.

As such, it will consist of a few invited talks and substantial time set aside for group discussions. We hope that participants will develop ideas for collaborative projects and, perhaps, proposal ideas. We will summarize meeting outcomes in the SPARC Newsletter.

Given the nature of the workshop, attendance will be limited to about 25, with some allowance for students and early career scientists.

If you are interested in attending, please contact the conveners.
If you wish to make a presentation, please include a synopsis in your email.
We will distribute the synopses to attendees prior to the workshop.

The workshop is scheduled for September 6 to 8^th at Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) in Boulder, Colorado.
A modest registration fee is expected (<$100).
More details about the meeting location and schedule will be forthcoming.

Conveners:

Larry Thomason l.w.thomason@nasa.gov

Lars Kalnajs kalnajs@colorado.edu

Terry Deshler deshler@uwyo.edu

The 24^th SPARC Scientific Steering Group (SSG) meeting was held in Berlin, Germany, from 1-4 November 2016. The meeting followed a one-day science workshop focused on SPARC’s contribution to the WCRP Grand Challenges on 31 October 2016. The resulting report gives an overview of current and new SPARC activities, the current state of partner projects and an update on the looming gap in limb-sounding observations of atmospheric composition. Key discussion points from the WCRP/SPARC Workshop: “Grand Challenges for Climate Science – Synergies between SPARC and the WCRP Grand Challenges” are also listed.

Find the report.

Related publication: SPARC Newsletter No. 48, January 2017.

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

How does downward planetary wave coupling affect polar stratospheric ozone in the Arctic winter stratosphere? By S.W. Lubis et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Strato-mesospheric carbon monoxide profiles above Kiruna, Sweden (67.8 ° N, 20.4 ° E), since 2008. By N.J. Ryan et al. in Earth System Science Data.

Trend and recovery of the total ozone column in South America and Antarctica. By R. Toro et al. in Climate Dynamics.

Impact of a moderate volcanic eruption on chemistry in the lower stratosphere: balloon-borne observations and model calculations. By G. Berthet et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Decadal predictability without ocean dynamics. By A. Srivastava and T. DelSole in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Long-lived contrails and convective cirrus above the tropical tropopause. By U. Schumann et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Evaluation of the Ozone Fields in NASA’s MERRA-2 Reanalysis. By K. Wargan et al. in the Journal of Climate.

Development of a self-consistent lightning NOx simulation in large-scale 3-D models. By C. Luo et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Robustness of the simulated tropospheric response to ozone depletion. By W.J.M Seviour et al. in the Journal of Climate.

Discussion papers – open for comment

Response of Trace Gases to the Disrupted 2015–2016 Quasi-Biennial Oscillation. By O.V. Tweedy et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Validation of 10-year SAO OMI Ozone Profile (PROFOZ) Product Using Ozonesonde Observations. By G. Huang et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions.

Validation of meteorological analyses and trajectories in the Antarctic lower stratosphere using Concordiasi superpressure balloon observations. By L. Hoffmann et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

The fifth Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative (CCMI) Science Workshop will be held in Toulouse at the Centre International de Conférences of Météo-France, 13-15 June 2017.

The Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative (CCMI) is a joint activity between Future Earth’s International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) Project and the World Climate Research Programme’s (WCRP’s) Stratosphere-troposphere Processes and their Role in Climate project (SPARC).

The scope of this international activity is to study the chemistry and dynamics of the global troposphere and stratosphere in a one-atmosphere approach to understand the complex interactions and feedbacks between them and their impact on climate, air pollution, and the ozone layer. Particular goals are to challenge the performance of global models with observations and process analyses, and to disentangle the different natural and anthropogenic drivers of observed changes.

Find more information on the workshop website: www.meteo.fr/cic/meetings/2017/CCMI

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

Influence of the spatial distribution of gravity wave activity on the middle atmospheric dynamics. By P. Šácha et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Decadal prediction skill using a high-resolution climate model. By P.A. Monerie et al. in Climate Dynamics.

Evolution of the eastward shift in the quasi-stationary minimum of the Antarctic total ozone column. By A. Grytsai et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Impact of biogenic very short-lived bromine on the Antarctic ozone hole during the 21st century. By R.P. Fernandez et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0650.1?af=R

Changes in Northern Hemisphere Winter Storm Tracks under the Background of Arctic Amplification. By J. Wang et al. in the Journal of Climate.

Is There a Stratospheric Pacemaker Controlling the Daily Cycle of Tropical Rainfall? By T. Sakazaki et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.

Variability and evolution of the midlatitude stratospheric aerosol budget from 22 years of ground-based lidar and satellite observations. By S.M. Khaykin et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Two mechanisms of stratospheric ozone loss in the Northern Hemisphere, studied using data assimilation of Odin/SMR atmospheric observations. By K. Sagi et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Marginal Stability and Predator–prey Behaviour within Storm Tracks. By L. Novak et al. in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Predictability of downward propagation of major sudden stratospheric warmings. By A.Y. Karpechko et al. in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

A sudden stratospheric warming compendium. By A.H. Butler et al. in Earth System Science Data.

The CAMS interim Reanalysis of Carbon Monoxide, Ozone and Aerosol for 2003–2015. By J. Fleming et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Discussion papers – open for comment

Radiative and climate effects of stratospheric sulfur geoengineering using seasonally varying injection areas. By A. Laakso et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Mean age of stratospheric air derived from AirCore observations. By A. Engel et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Meet the three new Scientific Steering Group (SSG) members who joined the SPARC leadership from January 2017: Hassan Bencherif (France), Harry Hendon (Australia), and Donald Wuebbles (USA). Welcome!

SPARC would also like to take this opportunity to thank the outgoing SSG members Julie Arblaster (Australia), Mark Baldwin (UK), Thando Ndarana (South Africa), and Saolo Freitas (Brazil) for their dedication and commitment to SPARC. Thank you!

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

Observed connections of Arctic stratospheric ozone extremes to Northern Hemisphere surface climate. By D.J. Ivy et al. in Environmental Research Letters.

Climate research must sharpen its view. By J. Marotzke et al. in Nature Climate Change.

Broad Spectrum Mountain Waves. By R.B. Smith and C.G. Kruse in the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences.

Halogen chemistry reduces tropospheric O₃ radiative forcing. By T. Sherwen et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Introduction to the SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP) and overview of the reanalysis systems. By M. Fujiwara et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Time-varying changes in the simulated structure of the Brewer–Dobson Circulation. By C.I. Garfinkel et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Impact of biogenic very short-lived bromine on the Antarctic ozone hole during the 21st century. By R.P. Fernandez et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Discussion papers – open for comment

Lidar ratios of stratospheric volcanic ash and sulfate aerosols retrieved from CALIOP measurements. By A.T. Prata et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

MIPAS IMK/IAA Carbon Tetrachloride (CCl₄) Retrieval. By E. Eckert et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions.

By Gaby Langendijk¹ and Carla Gulizia²

¹World Meteorological Organisation, Geneva, Switzerland (glangendijk@wmo.int)
²Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Young Earth System Scientists (YESS) community brings together young researchers from a range of scientific backgrounds, including both natural and social sciences. The YESS community unifies early career researchers (ECR) in an influential network giving young researchers a collective voice and leverage, while supporting career development.

Over the past year YESS has been extremely active in many ways. The community has grown extensively across the globe and carried out its first elections for Regional Representatives and the Executive Committee. YESS recently published a white paper in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, outlining our vision of the future of Earth System Science, focused on four ‘Frontiers’: seamless Earth system prediction, communication, user-driven science, and interdisciplinarity. The paper also identifies what is required to tackle these major scientific challenges from an ECR perspective. The Argentinean National Weather Service is officially supporting YESS through the establishment of a part-time YESS Officer position to assist in the day-to-day running of YESS.

Periodic webinars have been offered by YESS, whereby expert researchers share their knowledge of particular Earth system science topics. Furthermore, YESS also coordinates Council Webinars, where Council members present their own science, to promote exchange within the community.

YESS has also been present at several international conferences and research institutions around the world, organizing side events for ECR. For example, YESS helped to organize the Early Career Scientists Symposium at the CLIVAR Open Science Conference, held in Qingdao, China, in September 2016.

In the coming year YESS will continue its outreach efforts to grow and serve the community, including activities at international conferences such as EGU, AGU, IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA, etc., as well as seeking more opportunities for ECR to become more involved in various working groups, committees, and panels.

If you are a Masters or PhD student, or you are a postdoc within ~5 years of your PhD and are interested in joining the YESS community, email us at contact@yess-community.org . You can also follow YESS on:

– Facebook: www.facebook.com/yesscommunity

– Twitter: https://twitter.com/YESSCommunity

– LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/yess-community

Organized by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), the GOTHAM Summer School on “Global Teleconnections in the Earth’s Climate System – Processes, Modelling and Advanced Analysis Methods” will train young scientists on a unique combination of interdisciplinary scientific topics and tools relevant for understanding teleconnections and their role in causing extreme weather events.

The school comprises lectures as well as tutorial sessions by some of the world’s leading experts in this field.

Specific topics include:

• Global consequences of extreme El Niños.
• Mid-latitude weather extremes and the role of tropical, extratropical and arctic drivers.
• Stratosphere dynamics and stratosphere-troposphere interactions.
• Internal variability and external drivers of South and East Asian monsoon systems.
• Interactions between global teleconnection patterns.
• Data management skills and the use of citizen science platforms (climateprediction.net).Identification of teleconnections using complex systems or network methods.

Participation:

The Summer School is intended to host 25 young researchers working in relevant topical areas, both from GOTHAM partners and external institutes.

Registration is free-of-charge and accommodation expenses will be covered for all attendees.

Limited funding is available to cover travel expenses of a few selected students.
Application processes to be announced soon at the official website of the Summer School:
http://cosy.pik-potsdam.de/gotham-school

Organizers:

Reik V. Donner, Dim Coumou, Efi Rousi (contact person: rousi@potsdam-pik.de), Chiranjit Mitra

Abstract (oral and poster presentations) deadline: 12 March 2017

The Middle Atmosphere Symposium (ICMA / IAMAS M12) will take place within the IAPSO-IAMAS-IAGA General Assembly “Good Hope for Earth Sciences”.

27 August – 1 September 2017, Cape Town, South Africa.

We anticipate the MA Symposium to bring together our vibrant community
working on the dynamics, radiation and chemistry of the middle atmosphere.

The M12 Symposium will focus on:

• Gravity waves: their generation, propagation and breaking
• Intraseasonal, interannual and longer timescale dynamical variability
• Middle atmosphere response to anthropogenic and natural forcings
• Stratospheric/mesospheric chemistry and ozone
• Radiation, microphysics, chemistry and dynamics at the tropopause
• Transport and mixing in multiple spatial scales
• Tropical / extratropical dynamical interactions
• Mechanisms of stratosphere-troposphere coupling, at all time scales

Invited speakers:

Marta Abalos, Joan Alexander, Mark Baldwin, Greg
Bodeker, Andreas Dörnbrack, David Ferreira, Nili Harnik, Peter
Hitchcock, Bodil Karlson, Alexey Karpechko, Katja Matthes, Thando
Ndarana, Kaoru Sato

For further information:

http://www.iapso-iamas-iaga2017.com/index.php/2016-05-15-22-51-06/scientific-programme-2/iamas-sessions/87-m12-middle-atmosphere-symposium-icma

http://www.iapso-iamas-iaga2017.com/