Grant evaluation deadline: 15 May 2015
Applications deadline: 15 July 2015

This training school is supported by the European Geosciences Union (EGU), organized by the Wegener Center for Climate anf Global Change (WegC) in collaboration with the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) and local organization provided by island of meetings (iom).

Attending the school you will get an overview of the state of the art techniques and methods for detecting and monitoring the volcanic and convective clouds, you will know the different instruments and platforms allowing us to get the best performance in detecting such kind of clouds, you will be projected to the future learning about new missions planned for solving the main issues on these fields, you will be involved in real applications as early warming systems and modeling, you will directly analize the data.

The school topics will range from satellite instruments such as IR sensors or GPS radio occultations to aircraft measuremtents like lidar and radar, from study of ash and SO2 clouds to tropical cyclones, Mediterranean hurricanes, land and maritime convection.

The purpose of the School is to train students with outstanding research interest in the techniques allowing to detect, monitor, and model convective and volcanic clouds, to gain knowledge of the instruments and satellite missions (present and future) and to be able to support such kind of studies.

The extreme atmospheric event cloud detection is a high multidisciplinary and challenging topic since the same techniques and instruments can be used for meteorology, volcanic monitoring, atmospheric physics and climate purposes. Within all these fields there are still many unsolved issues making this school fundamental for creating a new generation of scientists able to use the synergy of several different instruments and techniques.

Each topic includes keynote plenary lectures with in-depth discussion. The school will consist of lectures combined with the practical application of the material covered in the lectures through introductory lab sessions and a set of research problems that will form the core of the School.

Through the introductory keynotes invited lectures, the students will be introduced to all the issues and challenges of the convective and volcanic cloud detection, monitoring and modeling, gaining an overview of the state of the art and the future development.

All the participants are expected to give a short talk or to present a poster about their own research; the selection of the talks will be done through evaluation process as in a regular conference.

The students will leave the school with an increased understanding of the cutting-edge research questions and with the perspective of creating some future projects in this field also thanks to the network created during the school with the lecturers and other students.

IDL and ENVI licences will be offered to all the participants for the period of the course.
15 EGU Grants covering the registration fee, will be awarded to participants coming from developing countries.

Applications:

The School is open to graduate students, PhD students and early career researchers.
More info available at the website.
Registration.

Dates:

Pre-registration is appreciated since there will be a limited space available.
The priority will be given in chronological registration order.
Applications deadline: July 15, 2015

Contacts:

Riccardo Biondi

School fees:

• The school registration fee is 330 € including coffee breaks and teaching material.
• Hotel accommodation available form 140 € for the whole period.
• 15 grants offered by European Geosciences Union are available, covering the registration fee.
• Full board registration fee 660-720 €, thanks to the agreement with the local hotels and restaurants we can offer a full board discounted arrangement depending on the accommodation (sharing room or single room), including accommodation in 3* hotel, breakfasts, lunches (buffet), dinners (first course, second course, side dish, fruit or dessert and drinks), coffee breaks, teaching material and excursion.

Excursions and fun-night:

• Guided visit to the medieval Palazzo della Corgna and the castle of Castiglione del Lago (about 2h)
• Ice cream night
• Fun-run on the lungolago
• Possible tour on saturday (10 October) on the Lake visiting the islands and having lunch on the boat or in a typical resaturant. This tour requires an additional fee and will be organized just if we reach a critical number of participants.

School Location:

Castiglione del Lago (Italy), medieval town located on a peninsula on the coast of Trasimeno Lake, mid-way between Rome and Florence and easily reachable by train and by car from both cities.

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

Comparisons of polar processing diagnostics from 34 years of the ERA-Interim and MERRA reanalyses. By Z.D. Lawrence et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The weakening summer circulation in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes. By D. Coumou et al. in Science.

5-day waves in polar stratosphere and mesosphere temperature and mesospheric ice water measured by SOFIE/AIM. By X. Liu et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Discussion Papers – open for comment

A PV-based determination of the transport barrier in the Asian summer monsoon anticyclone. By F. Ploeger et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Sensitivity analysis of the potential impact of discrepancies in stratosphere–troposphere exchange on inferred sources and sinks of CO₂. By F. Deng et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

What is the limit of stratospheric sulfur climate engineering? By U. Niemeier and C. Timmreck in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

Comparison of the CMAM30 data set with ACE-FTS and OSIRIS: polar regions. By D. Pendlebury et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

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 Discussions.

Abstracts and travel requests deadline: 15 July 2015
Registration deadline: 1 Sept 2015

Dates:
7-9 October 2015

Venue:
ESRIN & CNR – Tor Vergata, Frascati/Rome, Italy

Theme:
Process-oriented evaluation and analysis of CCMI-1 simulations

Highlight:
A joint session with the AeroCom community will be held at ESRIN on the first day (7 October) to focus on plans for CMIP6 (AerChemMIP).
The CCMI meeting on the following days (8/9 October) will be held at CNR – Tor Vergata.
Note: Shuttle buses will be arranged for easy access from hotels in Frascati to both meeting locations.

Scope:
The CCMI 2015 workshop will focus on process-oriented evaluation and analysis of the CCMI Phase-1 (CCMI-1) troposphere-stratosphere resolving chemistry-climate model (CCM) simulations using new observations and diagnostics. It will also provide a platform for discussions on model development and common issues experienced with CCMI-1 simulations. Parts of the workshop will be devoted to discussing plans for CCMI contributions to TOAR (the Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report, 2016), the next WMO/UNEP ozone (2018) and IPCC climate assessment (2020), and CMIP6 (2015-2020). More information on CCMI can be found at http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/ccmi/.

Workshop goals:
The goal of the workshop is to bring together modelling groups, experimentalists, and scientists who analyze the data and to provide a platform for discussion of the most recent progress within CCMI.

Topics of the workshop include:

• Model improvement, model development, and common issues with CCMI-1 simulations,
• Process-oriented and observation-based evaluation of the chemistry, dynamics, radiation, and transport in the CCMI-1 simulations,
• Emergent constraints for the evaluation of CCM projections,
• New observations and approaches for improved model evaluation,
• Emission-dependent projections of air quality and impacts on climate/meteorology (and viceversa),
• Emission-dependent projections of the ozone layer and impacts on climate (and vice-versa),
• Effects of stratospheric changes on tropospheric climate and chemistry (and vice-versa),
• Dynamics and chemistry of the Asian monsoon.

Workshop Format:
The meeting will include invited and contributed oral presentations, poster sessions, and breakout-groups focusing on relevant workshop topics.

Deadlines:
Abstracts and travel requests: 15 July 2015
Registration: 1 September 2015

Scientific Organizing Committee:
Michaela Hegglin (U Reading), Jean-François Lamarque (NCAR), Federico Fierli (CNR), Chiara Cagnazzo (CNR), William Collins (U Reading), Michael Schulz (NMI), and the CCMI Scientific Steering Committee.

Local Organizing Committee:
Federico Fierli (CNR), Chiara Cagnazzo (CNR), Francesco Cairo (CNR), Simon Pinnock (ESA), Claus Zehner (ESA)

Website:
http://ccmi-workshop.artov.isac.cnr.it/index.php

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

A negative phase shift of the winter AO/NAO due to the recent Arctic sea-ice reduction in late autumn. By T. Nakamura et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

The effects of springtime mid-latitude storms on trace gas composition determined from the MACC reanalysis. By K.E. Knowland et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Rapid transport of East Asian pollution to the deep tropics. By M.J. Ashfold et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The impact of temperature vertical structure on trajectory modeling of stratospheric water vapor. By T. Wang et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The influence of ENSO on northern mid-latitude ozone during the winter to spring transition. By J. Zhang et al. in the Journal of Climate.

Discussion Papers – open for comment

Nonlinear response of modeled stratospheric ozone to changes in greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances in the recent past. By S. Meul et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

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

Earth’s climate changes globally partly because of its inherent nature and partly because of anthropogenic effects. The middle atmosphere is an important component of the earth climate system that exhibits global cooling in response to the increase in greenhouse gases, and in which the ozone layer can be substantially destroyed leading to the formation of the Antarctic ozone hole. Recent developments in observational techniques and the extension of observational networks have enabled the capture of atmospheric phenomena concurrently over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. In addition, global numerical models, including coupled climate models and chemistry climate models, in which data assimilation techniques are implemented, are being extended to higher-altitude regions with greater horizontal and vertical resolutions. These developments allow the examination of atmospheric phenomena over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales in terms of their interactions and momentum/energy budgets. Such observations and models generate considerable amounts of data; thus, methods of data analysis are becoming increasingly important and “data-centric” science needs to be pursued. In parallel, new theories that can treat various phenomena seamlessly and three-dimensionally are needed, and those able to describe inductive elucidated structures are being constructed. These circumstances compel us to organize this symposium in order to review the latest research regarding the whole atmosphere, particularly focusing on the middle and upper atmosphere, and to discuss the direction of future endeavors.

Conveners

Kaoru Sato (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
Takuji Nakamura (National Institute of Polar Research, Japan)
Toru Sato (Kyoto University, Japan)
Masaki Satoh (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
M. Joan Alexander (NorthWest Research Associates, United States)
William E. Ward (University of New Brunswick, Canada)

Local Organizing Committee

Masaki Tsutsumi (National Insitute of Polar Research, Japan)
Akinori Saito (Kyoto University, Japan)
Koji Nishimura (National Insitute of Polar Research, Japan)
Yoshihiro Tomikawa (National Insitute of Polar Research, Japan)
Masashi Kohma (The University of Tokyo, Japan)

email:

website: http://pansy.eps.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/iswa/

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

A comprehensive observational filter for satellite infrared limb sounding of gravity waves. By Q.T. Trinh et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Seasonal changes in the tropospheric carbon monoxide profile over the remote Southern Hemisphere evaluated using multi-model simulations and aircraft observations. By J.A. Fisher et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Investigating bias in the application of curve fitting programs to atmospheric time series. By P.A. Pickers and A.C. Manning in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Solar Signals in CMIP-5 Simulations: The Ozone Response. By L.L. Hood et al. in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Reference upper-air observations for climate: From concept to reality. By G.E. Bodeker et al. in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

North Atlantic storm-track sensitivity to warming increases with model resolution. By J. Wilson et al. in the Journal of Climate.

Energetic particle induced intra-seasonal variability of ozone inside the Antarctic polar vortex observed in satellite data. By T. Fytterer et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Stratospheric photolysis produces large ‘clumped’ isotope perturbation in tropospheric nitrous oxide. By J.A. Schmidt and M.S. Johnson in Geophysical Research Letters.

Inter-Calibration of Microwave Temperature Sounders using Radio Occultation Measurements. By O. Isoz et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Discussion Papers – open for comment

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 Discussions.

Effect of gravity wave temperature fluctuations on homogeneous ice nucleation in the tropical tropopause layer. By T. Dinh et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

A tropospheric chemistry reanalysis for the years 2005–2012 based on an assimilation of OMI, MLS, TES and MOPITT satellite data. By K. Miyazaki et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.

National Research Council of the National Academies, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate

The United States National Research Council’s (NRC) Committee on The Future of Atmospheric Chemistry Research is inviting input from the atmospheric chemistry research community including scientists, students, and postdocs from academia, government, and the private sector on topics such as:

• Key scientific questions that will drive fundamental atmospheric chemistry science over the next decade;
• Important societal and interdisciplinary science challenges affected by and affecting atmospheric chemistry science; and
• Current and future infrastructure or community capabilities, such as measurement technologies, models, observational platforms, or other infrastructure investments.

To this end, the committee has opened a "virtual town hall" questionnaire at
http://nas-sites.org/atmchem/virtual-town-hall/.

In addition, the committee will hold four in-person town halls in Boulder, Boston, DC and
Irvine in the US over the next two months. For a full schedule of the meetings please see
http://nas-sites.org/atmchem/town-hall-meetings/.

Further information on the study and the community input phase may be found at
http://nas-sites.org/atmchem/.

Call for Papers

Changes in water availability and quality are occurring mainly as consequences of global and local changes including environmental factors, climate change and human-induced changes. Science-based knowledge to assess water resources over a range of scales in space and time is essential to develop methodologies for water resources assessments to improve sustainable water management practices. Linked to the dynamic assessment of water resources is the ability to provide reliable seasonal predictions of water availability and water quality.

Important research efforts focus on issues such as possible changes or intensification of the hydrological cycle, predictions of freshwater availability under climate change, and the ability to predict the variations of global and regional hydrological processes and water resources. The capability for dynamic water resources assessment linked to seasonal and inter-annual variations of the water balance serves as a basis for interaction with water managers and policy makers at regional and national scales.

The conference is meant to provide a platform for scientists and practitioners to exchange their views on monitoring, assessment and prediction of key variables for water management.

Target Group

The conference aims to reach scientists and water managers actively involved in world water balance research, as well as the development and application of new approaches to water resources assessments and decision-making in water policies and water management. Demand driven-applications to meet requirements of the target group are expected to cover improvements in the observation of the elements of the world water balance, methods for water resources assessments, and the predictability of world and regional water balances. Likewise, quantifiable impacts of changes of the temporal and spatial availability of water resources for integrated water resources management practices will be addressed.

Call for Papers

If your domain of expertise is in one or more of the thematic topics, you are invited to submit an abstract in English language of not more than 500 words to the conference secretariat ()

Conference Secretariat

Federal Institute of Hydrology, Koblenz, Germany

Ms Ana Maria Conde

Find website.

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

Stratospheric and mesospheric HO₂ observations from the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder. By L. Millán et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Trends of ozone total columns and vertical distribution from FTIR observations at eight NDACC stations around the globe. By C. Vigouroux et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Revisiting the hemispheric asymmetry in mid-latitude ozone changes following the Mount Pinatubo eruption: A 3-D model study. By S.S. Dhomse et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.

Intercomparison of vertically resolved merged satellite ozone data sets: interannual variability and long-term trends. By F. Tummon et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Composition and Physical Properties of the Asian Tropopause Aerosol Layer and the North American Tropospheric Aerosol Layer. By P. Yu et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.

Discussion Papers – open for comment

Transport of Antarctic stratospheric strongly dehydrated air into the troposphere observed during the HALO-ESMVal campaign 2012. By C. Rolf 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).

Upper-troposphere and lower-stratosphere water vapor retrievals from the 1400 and 1900 nm water vapor bands. By B.C. Kindel et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Simulating the impact of emissions of brominated very short-lived substances on past stratospheric ozone trends. By B.-M. Sinnhuber and S. Meul in Geophysical Research Letters.

Vertical Evolution of Potential Energy Density and Vertical Wavenumber Spectrum of Antarctic Gravity Waves from 35 to 105 km at McMurdo (77.8°S, 166.7°E). By X. Lu et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Two decades of water vapor measurements with the FISH fluorescence hygrometer: a review. By J. Meyer et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Extraordinary halocarbon emissions initiated by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. By T. Saito et al. in Geophysical Research Letters.

Discussion Papers – open for comment

Trapping, chemistry and export of trace gases in the South Asian summer monsoon observed during CARIBIC flights in 2008. By A. Rauthe-Schöch et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.