The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached yet another new record high in 2014, says WMO.

According to the latest WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, between 1990 and 2014 there was a 36% increase in radiative forcing – the warming effect on our climate – because of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) from industrial, agricultural and domestic activities.

Find the WMO Media Release (issued 9 November 2015).

Find the WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.

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

Wintertime atmospheric response to Atlantic multidecadal variability: effect of stratospheric representation and ocean–atmosphere coupling. By Y. Peings and G. Magnusdottir in Climate Dynamics.

Synoptic-Scale Behavior of the Extratropical Tropopause Inversion Layer. By R.P. Kedzierski et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.

Methyl chloride as a tracer of tropical tropospheric air in the lowermost stratosphere inferred from IAGOS-CARIBIC passenger aircraft measurements. By T. Umezawa et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

An assessment of upper-troposphere and lower-stratosphere water vapor in MERRA, MERRA2 and ECMWF reanalyses using Aura MLS observations. By J.H. Jiang et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Methane and nitrous oxide retrievals from MIPAS-ENVISAT. By J. Plieninger et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Evaluation of methods for gravity wave extraction from middle-atmospheric lidar temperature measurements. By B. Ehard et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Did the 2011 Nabro eruption affect the optical properties of ice clouds? By A. Meyer et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Discussion papers – open for comment

Carbon monoxide climatology derived from the trajectory mapping of global MOZAIC-IAGOS data. By M. Osman et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Climatic impacts of stratospheric geoengineering with sulfate, black carbon and titania injection. By A.C. et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Drivers of changes in stratospheric and tropospheric ozone between year 2000 and 2100. By A. Banerjee 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).

Seasonal winter forecasts and the stratosphere. By A.A. Scaife et al. in Atmospheric Science Letters.

Water vapor stratification and dynamical warming behind the sharpness of the Earth’s mid-latitude tropopause. By A.P. Ferreira in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Spatial mapping of ground-based observations of total ozone. By K.-L. Chang et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Solar signals in CMIP-5 Simulations: Effects of Atmosphere–ocean Coupling. By S. Misios et al. in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Impacts of high-latitude volcanic eruptions on ENSO and AMOC. By F.S.R. Pausata in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Airborne measurements of organic bromine compounds in the Pacific tropical tropopause layer. By M.A. Navarro et al. in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Atlantic hurricane surge response to geoengineering. By J.C. Moore et al. in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Solar geoengineering using solid aerosol in the stratosphere. By D.K. Weisenstein et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Stratospheric geoengineering impacts on El Niño/Southern Oscillation. By C.J. Gabriel and A. Robock in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Radiative Impacts of the 2011 Abrupt Drops in Water Vapor and Ozone in the Tropical Tropopause Layer. By D.M. Gilford et al. in the Journal of Climate.

Enhanced long-range forecast skill in boreal winter following stratospheric strong vortex conditions. By O.P. Tripathi et al. in Environmental Research Letters.

Discussion papers – open for comment

Upper-tropospheric humidity changes under constant relative humidity. By K. Gierens and K. Eleftheratos in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

A stable and large vortex, concentric around the south pole and characterised by low temperatures explains why 2015 experiences the largest ozone hole since 2006.

Find WMO Antarctic Ozone Bulletin (published on 29. October 2015).

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.

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

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.

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.

Abstract submission deadline is 15 November.

The German SPARC group, Stratospheric Change and its Role in Climate Prediction (SHARP), is organising a workshop which aims at addressing relevant issues of stratospheric change, the interaction between atmospheric chemistry and climate change, and the implications for climate and weather in observations and model studies.

Find more information at http://www.sharp2016.de.

The US National Academy of Sciences is preparing for the Decadal Survey in Earth Science Applications from Space, and is requesting short (1500 word) white papers from the broad scientific community with a deadline of November 2nd. We are encouraging you to consider responding to this request, highlighting a scientific issue that should inform plans for future space observations that is important to the SPARC community.

Submissions should address:

1. What are the key challenges or questions for Earth System Science across the spectrum of basic research, applied research, applications, and/or operations in the coming decade?
2. Why are these challenge/questions timely to address now especially with respect to readiness?
3. Why are space-based observations fundamental to addressing these challenges/questions?

In your responses to these questions, please focus on the role of space-based observations and comment on:

a. Whether existing and planned U.S. and international programs will provide the capabilities necessary to make substantial progress on the identified challenge and associated questions. If not, what additional investments are needed?
b. How to link space-based observations with other observations to increase the value of data for addressing key scientific questions and societal needs;
c. The anticipated scientific and societal benefits; and
d. The science communities that would be involved.

For more details and a submission form, see:
http://sites.nationalacademies.org/SSB/SSB_167627

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This message was sent by email to the SPARC community by

the SPARC office
on behalf of Joan Alexander and Neil Harris, SPARC co-chairs

Abstract submission deadline: 22 November 2015

This is the second announcement for the upcoming Gravity Wave Symposium to be held on the week of May 16-20, 2016 starting with dinner Sunday the 15th and departing after lunch Friday the 20th at the Penn State Campus in State College Pennsylvania in the United States.

Call for papers:

The deadline for abstract submission is November 22, 2015.
Our ADAPT center assistant and postdoc Dr. Dandan Tao has kindly built a website for the symposium that should contain all the essential information about the meeting. Please visit the link to the following website: http://adapt.psu.edu/2016SPARCGWSymposium/

Subject areas:

Consistent with our first save-the-date announcement, we would encourage contributions from all aspects of atmospheric gravity wave research.

Topics of special interests include but are not limited to:

• Gravity wave sources including orography, convection, and other jet stream sources;
• Remote-sensing and in-situ observations of gravity waves;
• Gravity wave parameterization and impacts;
• Theoretical studies of Gravity wave dynamics;
• High resolution “gravity wave permitting” modeling studies;
• Gravity waves, energy spectrum, and predictability;
• Gravity Wave effects on the general circulation;
• Gravity wave effects on the climate in model studies;
• Gravity waves and convective initiations;
• Gravity waves and clear-air turbulence;
• Gravity waves and ice clouds;
• Gravity waves in the QBO/tropical stratospheric circulation;
• Gravity waves in tropical cyclones.

Meeting format:

We intend to identify one or two lead speakers to provide an overview of each of the subject areas based on the recommendations from the meeting’s scientific organizing committee, and/or the content of the submitted abstracts. We will give also ample time, space and attention for those abstracts to be selected as posters. Please indicate in your subjection whether a poster presentation is requested.

Conference package:

$225 per person per day for single occupancy and $180 per person per day for double occupancy plus taxes. The conference package include all day meals, snacks, coffee and non-alcoholic drinks as well as conference registration.
Yes, there will also be beer bars arranged in the evenings but they will be at your additional cost. More information will be added on the symposium website: http://adapt.psu.edu/2016SPARCGWSymposium/

Accommodation and transportation:

Penn State Campus, State College Pennsylvania.
You can find more information on the symposium website.

Local climate:

Temperature range in May: 40℉ – 60℉ (~ 5℃ – ~15℃). Pack clothes for chilly nights and warm days.

Highlights:

Breath-taking views of Niagara Falls is only 50 miles away, especially for those who choose to fly through Toronto Airport (you may need separate visa to Canada).

We looking forward to seeing all of you next May.

Best regards,
Fuqing ()
on behalf of the scientific organizing committee

Co-chairs: Joan Alexander, Kevin Hamilton, Kaoru Sato and Fuqing Zhang
Committee members: Ulrich Achatz, James Doyle, Edwin P. Gerber, Albert Hertzog, Richard Johnson, Brian Mapes, Jadwiga (Yaga) Richter

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

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.

Discussion papers – open for comment

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.