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

Coordinated Upper-Troposphere-to-Stratosphere Balloon Experiment in Biak. By F. Hasebe et al. in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement. By P.B. Holden et al in Nature Climate Change.

New Version of Popular Climate Model Released. By L. Joel in Earth and Space Science News.

Atmospheric blocking and upper‐level Rossby wave forecast skill dependence on model configuration. By O. Martínez‐Alvarado et al. in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal meteorological Society.

Ozone sensitivity of tropical upper‐troposphere and stratosphere temperature in the MetOffice Unified Model. By J. Oh et al. in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal meteorological Society.

Descent Rate Models of the Synchronization of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation by the Annual Cycle in Tropical Upwelling. By K. Rajendran et al. in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

Open Access “Grand Challenges” in Big Data and the Earth Sciences. By S.L. Sellars in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Discussion papers open for comment:

Zonal-mean data set of global atmospheric reanalyses on pressure levels. By P. Martineau et al. in Earth System Science Data.

A number of SPARC-related sessions have been organised for this year’s fall AGU meeting (abstract submission deadline 3 August 2016). The following is a non-exhaustive list:

A023: Atmospheric Trace Species in the Stratosphere: Distribution, trends, variability, and processes related to stratospheric ozone and climate
Primary Convener : Karen Hepler Rosenlof
Convenors: John S Daniel, Susan Elaine Strahan, Antara Banerjee

https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/prelim.cgi/Session/50372

A079 Observations and Modeling of the Upper Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere
Primary Convener : Eric J Jensen
Convenors: William John Randel, Marta Abalos, Adam E Bourassa

https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/prelim.cgi/Session/47094

A087: Quantifying and reducing the uncertainties in the aerosol forcing of climate
Primary Convener : Ken S Carslaw
Convenors: Lamarque Jean-Francois, Matthew Christensen, V Ramaswamy

https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/prelim.cgi/Session/53904

A096: Stratosphere-Troposphere Coupling: Large-Scale Atmospheric Dynamics and Transport
Primary Convener : Clara Orbe
Convenors: Gang Chen, Marianna Linz, Peter Hitchcock

https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/prelim.cgi/Session/51534

GC039: Ensemble Modeling Approaches to Studying the Earth System Response to Anthropogenic Forcing
Primary Convener: Keith B Rodgers
Conveners: Shoshiro Minobe, Flavio Lehner, Mingfang Ting

https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/prelim.cgi/Session/50787

GC058: How Can Global Change Research Inform National Security Decision-Making?
Primary Convener: Apurva Dave
Convener: David Blauvelt

https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/prelim.cgi/Session/53085

IN014: Climate Informatics: Methods and Applications
Primary Convener: Jakob Runge
Conveners: Gustau Camps-Valls, Markus Reichstein, Veronika Eyring

https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/prelim.cgi/Session/50877

The early-bird registration deadline for the SPARC General Assembly is approaching on

1st July (coming Sunday) 24:00 UTC [Mon, 2 July 9:00 a.m. Japanese Standard time].

After that, the registration fee will be raised to 60.000 JPY (standard fee). Standard registration will be open until 2nd September 24:00 UTC.

Please register under http://www-mete.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/SPARC_GA2018/registration.html (scroll down to point 4).
The registration process will require a credit card.
A limited number of hotel rooms are available for reservation through the registration webpage (hotel reservation is not mandatory for registration). Hotel reservations will be made on first-come-first-serve basis.
All fees (registration; hotel cost; conference dinner) will only be charged to your credit card after the final registration deadline (September 3 (GMT+0:00) [9:00am, September 3 – Japan Time, GMT+9:00]).

Looking forward to seeing you at the conference!

Dear WCRP Community Members,

The draft WCRP Strategic Plan 2019-2029 is now available for public consultation. We welcome your comments and invite you to share this opportunity to shape the next decade of climate research among your colleagues and networks. You will find the plan and the process for commenting at: https://www.wcrp-climate.org/wcrp-sp-pc

A WCRP news item on the Strategic Plan is also available: https://www.wcrp-climate.org/news/wcrp-news/1345-draft-wcrp-strategic-plan-open-for-public-comment

The Strategic Plan consultation will close on 31 August 2018.

Feedback on the consultation process is most welcome. Please email

Kind regards
The WCRP Secretariat
on behalf of
Guy Brasseur
Chair, WCRP Joint Scientific Committee

Register for the International Summer School on Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences 2018:

Climate Changes:
Regional Modeling, data analysis and uncertainties
Director: Prof. J. Hesselbjerg Christensen
27-31 August 2018, L’Aquila, Italy
Early-bird registration deadline: July 15, 2018

The purpose of the summer school is to illustrate the progress that has been made in the scientific ability to generate detailed climate projections at the regional scale. The main objectives of the school are thus to provide students with an insight into climate changes and impacts, as well as to associated uncertainties and their communication. Assessments on the most recent techniques for climate data analysis, for regional climate modeling techniques, for climate impact on hydrology and for quality assessment and validation of the observations will be provided.

Find webpage

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

Transport Variability of Very Short Lived Substances From the West Indian Ocean to the Stratosphere. By A. Fiehn et al. in the Journal of Geophysica Research: Atmospheres.

Local and Remote Planetary Wave Effects on Polar Mesospheric Clouds in the Northern Hemisphere in 2014. By J.A. France in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Long‐Term Variation in the Mixing Fraction of Tropospheric and Stratospheric Air Masses in the Upper Tropical Tropopause Layer. By Y. Inai in the Journal of Geophysical research: Atmospheres.

Effects of Horizontal Wind Structure on a Gravity Wave Event in the Middle Atmosphere Over Syowa (69°S, 40°E), the Antarctic. By M. Kogure et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Changes in atmospheric blocking circulations linked with winter Arctic warming: A new perspective. By D. Luo et al. in the Journal of Climate.

On the Identification of Ozone Recovery. By K.A. Stone, S. Solomon, and D.E. Kinnison in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Sensitivities of modelled water vapour in the lower stratosphere: temperature uncertainty, effects of horizontal transport and small-scale mixing. By L. Poshyvailo in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The role of gravity wave drag optimization in the splitting of the Antarctic vortex in the 2002 sudden stratospheric warming. By G. Scheffler, M. Pulido, and C. Rodas in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Stratospheric Injection of Brominated Very Short‐Lived Substances: Aircraft Observations in the Western Pacific and Representation in Global Models. By P.A. Wales et al. in the Journal of geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Recent Decline in Extratropical Lower Stratospheric Ozone Attributed to Circulation Changes. By K. Wargan et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Interactions between Mesoscale and Submesoscale Gravity Waves and Their Efficient Representation in Mesoscale-Resolving Models. By J. Wilhelm et al. in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

Discussion papers open for comment:

How well do stratospheric reanalyses reproduce high-resolution satellite temperature measurements? By C.J. Wright and N.P. Hindley in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

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

Dependence of Present and Future European Temperature Extremes on the Location of Atmospheric Blocking. By L. Brunner et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Surface impacts of the Quasi Biennial Oscillation. By L.J. Gray et al in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The Impact of the Madden–Julian Oscillation on High-Latitude Winter Blocking during El Niño–Southern Oscillation Events. By S.A. Henderson and E.D. Maloney in the Journal of Climate.

Preconditioning of Arctic Stratospheric Polar Vortex Shift Events. By J. Huang et al. in the Journal of Climate.

Non-Dissipative and Dissipative Momentum Deposition by Mountain Wave Events in Sheared Environments. By C.G. Kruse and R.B. Smith in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

The South Asian monsoon—Pollution pump and purifier. By J. Lelieveld et al. in Science.

The GEWEX Water Vapor Assessment archive of water vapour products from satellite observations and reanalyses. By M. Schröder et al. in Earth System Science Data.

The vertical structure of annular modes. By A. Sheshadri et al. in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

El Niño Southern Oscillation influence on the Asian summer monsoon anticyclone. By X. Yan et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Discussion papers open for comment:

Ultraviolet Radiation modelling using output from the Chemistry Climate Model Initiative. By K. Lany et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Ideas: a simple proposal to improve the contribution of IPCC WG1 to the assessment and communication of climate change risks. By R.T. Sutton in Earth System Dynamics.

The early-bird registration deadline is 1 July 2018. Register now to use the discount rate of 50.000 JPY.

Find registration webpage

Regular conference fee (for registration after 1 July) is 60.000 JPY. On-site registration rate: 70.000 JPY.

Remember: There are special offers for those who want to join the last days of the Future Earth International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) 2018 Science Conference. Discount rates are available for participants of the IGAC conference, who only attend the first days of the SPARC General Assembly.

Find the SPARC GA meeting program

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

Outcomes of the Second Pan-GASS Meeting (“Understanding and Modelling Atmospheric Processes”) on 26 February – 2 March 2018 in Lorne, Victoria, Australia:
Future Community Efforts in Understanding and Modeling Atmospheric Processes. By X. Zeng et al. in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Correlation between system and observation errors in data assimilation. By T. berry and T. Sauer in the Monthly Weather Review.

Differences in Vertical Structure of the Madden‐Julian Oscillation Associated With the Quasi‐Biennial Oscillation. By H. Hendon and S. Abhik in the Geophysical Research Letters.

The MJO‐SSW Teleconnection: Interaction Between MJO‐Forced Waves and the Midlatitude Jet. By W. Kang and E. Tziperman in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Nonlinear Response of the Stratosphere and the North Atlantic‐European Climate to Global Warming. By E. Manzini, A. Yu. Karpechko , and L. Kornblueh in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Revisiting the mystery of recent stratospheric temperature trends. By A.C. Maycock et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Read this recently published nature article on the challenges African scientists face. The authors are part of the YESS community, supporting early career researchers.

In the article, YESS members from Africa are expressing their views on challenges, solutions & opportunities for their continent with regard to Earth system science in the context of climate change.

Find the article here.

(If you don’t have access to nature articles, please contact the SPARC office)