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

On the representation of major stratospheric warmings in reanalyses. By B. Ayarzagüena et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The biggest unknowns related to decadal prediction: what 50 experts think are the 5 major knowledge gaps. By D. Bojovic et al. in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Stratospheric Gravity-Wave Products from Satellite Infrared Nadir Radiances in the Planning, Execution and Validation of Aircraft Measurements during DEEPWAVE. By S.D. Eckermann et al. in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.

What drives the lifecycle of tropical anvil clouds? By B. Gasparini et al. in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems.

Decadal global temperature variability increases strongly with climate sensitivity. By F.J.M.M. Niijsse et al. in Nature: Climate Change.

A study on harmonizing total ozone assimilation with multiple sensors. By Y.J. Rochon, M. Sitwell, and Y.-M. Cho in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The Signal‐to‐Noise Paradox for Interannual Surface Atmospheric Temperature Predictions. By F. Sévellec and S.S. Drijfhout in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Why do Antarctic Ozone recovery trends vary? By S.E. Strahan, A.R. Douglass, and M.R. Damon in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Comparison of ground-based and satellite measurements of water vapour vertical profiles over Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. By D. Weaver et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

The July 2019 edition of the newsletter is now available online:

www.sparc-climate.org/publications/newsletter/sparc-newsletter-no-53/

Enjoy reading through an interesting collection of workshop reports and SPARC science descriptions

Dear Colleagues,

The Implementation and Transition Meeting Report is now finalized and available on the WCRP website. Please note that the report reflects discussions during the 2-day meeting, but also lists the key outcomes following the 40th Session of the Joint Scientific Committee (JSC-40), in particular, the timeline and conceptual framework, to avoid confusion. The JSC-40 Report will be published in the next few weeks. You will see from the implementation timeline and milestones that the next step in the process is consolidation. This includes refinement of the science questions, conceptual framework, and of the key elements for operations, delivery, and engagement. It also includes the identification of science, funding, and infrastructure needs and partner and stakeholder consultation. In the next weeks, a number of task teams will be formed to begin this process. We will soon be in touch with more information on this opportunity.

To share our plans as widely as possible we have put together an MS PowerPoint presentation that provides information on the WCRP Strategic and Implementation Plans. Now that the Strategic Plan has been finalized, we invite you to disseminate the key details of our Plan and its implementation process.

We thank you all for your contributions to this important first step and look forward to working with you all in the coming months.

Kind regards

Detlef Stammer
Chair WCRP Joint Scientific Committee

Helen Cleugh
Vice-chair WCRP Joint Scientific Committee

Pavel Kabat
in his capacity as WCRP Director

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

On Estimating the Cross‐Correlation and Least‐squares Fit of One Dataset to Another with Time Shift. By C.F. Chao and C.H. Chung in Earth and Space Science.

A 1D RCE study of factors affecting the tropical tropopause layer and surface climate. By S. Dacie et al. in the Journal of the Climate.

Influence of Arctic stratospheric ozone on surface climate in CCMI models. By O. Harari et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The impact of radiosounding observations on numerical weather prediction analyses in the Arctic. By T. Naakka et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

FORMATION OF ARCTIC STRATOCUMULI THROUGH ATMOSPHERIC RADIATIVE COOLING. By L.F. Simpfendoerfer et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Is Arctic Amplification Dominated by Regional Radiative Forcing and Feedbacks: Perspectives From the World‐Avoided Scenario. By J.G. Virgin and K.L. Smith in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Updated Temperature Data Give a Sharper View of Climate Trends. By H.-M. Zhang et al. in Earth and Space Science news (EOS).

Discussion papers – open for comments:

The unprecedented 2017–2018 stratospheric smoke event: Decay phase and aerosol properties observed with EARLINET. By H. Baars et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Comparison of IAGOS in-situ water vapour measurements and ECMWF ERA-Interim Reanalysis data. By P. Reutter et al. 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).

Predictability of Weather and Climate. By V. Krishnamurthy in Earth and Space Science.

Optimization of Gravity Wave Source Parameters for Improved Seasonal Prediction of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation. By C.A. Barton et al. in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

Using Project Loon super‐pressure balloon observations to investigate the inertial peak in the intrinsic wind spectrum in the mid‐latitude stratosphere. By J.P. Conway et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

China plans CFC-monitoring network to investigate rogue emissions. News article by D. Cyranoski in Nature.

ESD Reviews: Climate feedbacks in the Earth system and prospects for their evaluation. By C. Heinze et al. in Earth System Dynamics.

Interannual variations in Lower Stratospheric Ozone during the period 1984–2016. By J. Lu et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Quantification of water vapour transport from the Asian monsoon to the stratosphere. By M. Nützel et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Observational Evidence of Horizontal Transport‐Driven Dehydration in the TTL. By L.L. Pan et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Blocking statistics in a varying climate: lessons from a ‘traffic jam’ model with pseudostochastic forcing. By A. Paradise et al. in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

Trends of vertically integrated water vapor over the Arctic during 1979-2016: Consistent moistening all over? By A. Rinke et al. in the Journal of the Climate.

Impact of El Niño–Southern Oscillation on the interannual variability of methane and tropospheric ozone. By M.J. Rowlinson et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Effects of the tropospheric large‐scale circulation on European winter temperatures during the period of amplified Arctic warming. By T. Vihma et al. in the International Journal of Climatology.

The tropopause inversion layer interaction with the inertial gravity wave activities and its latitudinal variability. By Y. Zhang et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

International interdisciplinary PhD and Post-Doc summer research school

Observing and Modelling the Arctic Environment – Climate processes, prediction and projection

at

Nansen International Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NIERSC), St. Petersburg, Russia

8^th – 13^th September 2019

Sponsored by the Research Council of Norway INTPART project “ARCONOR: Arctic cooperation between Norway, Russia, India, China and US in satellite Earth observation and Education”, EC Horizon2020 “INTAROS: Integrated Arctic Observation System” and the organizing partners.

Applications by 1. August at 12:00 CET

Download announcement

The aim of this research school is to provide students with an overview of state-of the-art research in the Arctic from observations through process understanding and model development to application. The research school will have five sessions addressing:

(1) Observational capabilities: including in-situ measurements and satellite remote sensing, field campaigns and operational resources;
(2) Dynamics of the Arctic environment: what we know about the most important processes and how we include them in climate models;
(3) Surface coupling: a review of the multitude of surface coupling processes in the Arctic and current approaches to integrating this understanding in models at different scales;
(4) Climate projection and prediction: anthropogenically-forced and natural climate change in the Arctic, perspective from the 21st century and opportunities with climate prediction;
(5) Modelling for Arctic applications: using climate model results in other domains with examples from simulating marine primary production, future shipping routes, and other industrial activities in ice covered waters

Find meeting webpage

The HEMERA summer school is open to advanced master students, PhD students and young scientists interested/involved in balloon research, technicians and engineers from the participating agencies, research institutions, and industries.

Major themes of the summer school will cover the following:

1. The history, early and modern balloon science and industrial opportunities, recent advances and discoveries.
2. The atmospheric environment
3. The general logistics of balloon types, flight control, limitations of the ballooning environment, launching techniques, regulations.
4. Specific scientific and industrial ballooning operations of the agencies (CNES, SSC, ASI/CSA….
5. More detail on modern scientific results from ballooning and the instruments involved.
6. Future work, opportunities, measurements, ..

Teaching at the HEMERA summer school will be provided via lectures and showing casing balloon equipment.  One afternoon and the evening of Sept. 11, 2019 will be dedicated to a social programme (see programme).

The HEMERA summer school will be credited by 2 ECTS points, for which the students will receive a written certificate at the venue!

Registration must be completed before 26 July 2019
For more details, find link to registration webpage

2019 CATCH Open Science Workshop
7-8 December 2019
University of California, Berkeley, USA

An important objective of this workshop is to gather ideas and community support to develop CATCH working groups in order to focus research on emerging CATCH topics and research challenges. Therefore, this is a working workshop and all participants will have an active participation role. We are not collecting abstracts, but rather titles of presentations that participants would like to give. Following registration we will put together an agenda with talks, posters, and discussion sessions. Participants will be notified of their presentation type a month prior to the meeting. You are also welcome to attend without giving a presentation and your input to the working workshop will be through the discussion sessions in addition to Q&A during the oral and poster presentations.

There is limited funding available for travel support. Please only apply for travel support if you absolutely need it. Priority for travel support will be for early career scientists (current graduate student or within 4 years of receiving a PhD, excluding career breaks) and scientists from scientifically emerging countries.

Registration Information:

Registration fee: $150.00 The registration fee includes lunches and coffee/tea breaks for two days, and a group dinner on 7 December. Registration closes:  11 October 2019

Cancellations will include a $20.00 fee The CATCH Open Science Workshop is limited to 120 participants. If there are more than 120 registrations, the registrations will be evaluated. If your registration is declined, you will receive a full refund for the registration fee.

More information: catchscience.org

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

Internal interannual variability of the winter polar vortex in a simple model of the seasonally evolving stratosphere. By L.A. Hatfield and R.K. Scott in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Assessing changes in risk of amplified planetary waves in a warming world. By C. Huntingford et al. in the Atmospheric Science Letters.

Characteristics of Atmospheric Turbulence Retrieved from High Vertical‐Resolution Radiosonde Data in the US. By H.-C. Ko et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Differences between Arctic interannual and decadal variability across climate states. By J. Reusen, E. van der Linden, and R. Bintanja in the Journal of the Climate.

Diurnal Forcing and Phase Locking of Gravity Waves in the Maritime Continent. By J.H. Ruppert Jr. and F. Zhang in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

Does increased atmospheric resolution improve seasonal climate predictions? By A.A. Scaife et al. in the Atmospheric Science Letters.

Climate change made Europe’s mega-heatwave five times more likely. News article by Q. Schiermeier in Nature.

On the linearity of the stratospheric and Euro-Atlantic sector response to ENSO. By P. Trascasa-Castro et al. in the Journal of the Climate.

Hotness and Coldness Indexes Based on the Fahrenheit Scale. By M.J. Treacy, C.N. Ramirez and M. O’Keeffe in Earth & Space Science News (EOS).

Sensitivity of Gravity‐wave Momentum Flux to Moisture in the Mei‐Yu Front Systems. By Y. Wang et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Discussion papers – open for comments:

Simulating age of air and distribution of SF6 in the stratosphere with SILAM model. By R. Kouznetsov et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The tropical tropopause layer in reanalysis data sets. By S. Tegtmeier et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.