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This is a workshop on the stratosphere-troposphere dynamical coupling in the tropics, and also teleconnections to the extratropics, jointly organized with the following collaborative research activities:

• Years of the Maritime Continent (YMC)
• Project for solar-terrestrial environment prediction (PSTEP)
• JSPS KAKENHI “Stratosphere-troposphere dynamical coupling in the tropics”
• JSPS-DG-RSTHE Joint Research Project “Scientific research on extreme weather in changing climate in the Maritime Continent and its societal application”

Two-day core sessions are planned for the latest results of observations and data analyses, numerical experiments, and theoretical studies on the stratosphere-troposphere dynamical coupling in the tropics, whereas a couple of sessions are also planned for some specific subjects related to the influences of solar activity variations on weather and climate, and the implications for extreme weather and climate in the Maritime Continent under the scope of stratosphere-troposphere dynamical coupling. Participation of early career scientists and PhD students is encouraged, and limited amount of grants will be available to support the participation from Asian countries.

Important Dates  

• Deadline for abstract submission with grant application:
  November 30, 2019
• Deadline for abstract submission: December 20, 2019
• Deadline for registration without presentations:
  January 31, 2020

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

Highlight article (office choice):

100 Years of Progress in Understanding the Stratosphere and Mesosphere. M.P. Baldwin et al. in the Meteorological Monographs.

Nitrification of the lowermost stratosphere during the exceptionally cold Arctic winter 2015–2016. By M. Braun et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Solar Irradiance Variability: Comparisons of Models and Measurements. By O. Coddington et al. in Earth and Space Science.

Technical note: Reanalysis of Aura MLS chemical observations. By Q. Errera et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

A simple decomposition of European temperature variability capturing the variance from days to a decade. By P.G. Meyer and H. Kantz in Climate Dynamics.

Quantifying the timescale and strength of Southern Hemisphere intra‐seasonal stratosphere‐troposphere coupling. By E. Saggioro and T.G. Shepherd in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Exploring the Need for Reliable Decadal Prediction. Workshop report by S. Sandgathe et al. in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Intercomparison of in-situ aircraft and satellite aerosol measurements in the stratosphere. By O.S. Sandvik et al. in nature: Scientific Reports.

Quantifying the importance of interannual, interdecadal and multidecadal climate natural variabilities in the modulation of global warming rates. By M. Wei et al. in Climate Dynamics.

Increasing water vapor in the stratosphere and mesosphere after 2002. By J. Yue et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

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

Australian hot and dry extremes induced by weakenings of the stratospheric polar vortex. By E.-p. Lim et al. in Nature geoscience.

Variability of the Stratospheric Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) and Its Wave Forcing Simulated in the Beijing Climate Center Atmospheric General Circulation Model (BCC-AGCM). By Y. Lu et al. in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

The equatorial stratospheric semiannual oscillation and time‐mean winds in QBOi models. By A.K. Smith et al. in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Quantifying stratospheric temperature signals and climate imprints from post‐2000 volcanic eruptions. By M. Stocker et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Antarctic Temperature Variability and Change from Station Data. By J. Turner et al. in the International Journal of Climatology.

Ural blocking driving extreme Arctic sea‐ice loss, cold Eurasia and stratospheric vortex weakening in autumn and early winter 2016‐2017. By E. Tyrlis et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Discussion papers – open for comment:

Trends and Emissions of Six Perfluorocarbons in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. By E.S. Droste 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).

Highlight article (office choice):

The discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole

The unexpected discovery of a hole in the atmospheric ozone layer over the Antarctic revolutionized science — and helped to establish one of the most successful global environmental policies of the twentieth century.

By Susan Solomon in Nature News and Views

A Practical Assimilation Approach to Extract Smaller Scale Information from Observations with Spatially Correlated Errors: An Idealized Study. By J. Bédard and M. Buehner in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Skilful real‐time seasonal forecasts of the dry Northern European Summer 2018. By N. Dunstone et al. in the Geosphysical Research Letters.

The impact of prescribed ozone in climate projections run with HadGEM3‐GC3.1. By S.C. Hardiman et al. in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems.

Signatures of the Arctic Stratospheric Ozone in Northern Hadley Circulation Extent and Subtropical Precipitation. By D. Hu, Z. Guan, and W. Tian in the Geophysical Research Letters.

The Canadian Arctic Weather Science Project: Introduction to the Iqaluit Site. By P. Joe et al. in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Random trend errors in climate station data due to inhomogeneities. By R. Lindau and V. Venema in the International Journal of Climatology.

The 2019 New Year Stratospheric Sudden Warming and Its Real‐Time Predictions in Multiple S2S Models. By J. Rao et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Discussion papers – open for comment:

Stratospheric impact on the Northern Hemisphere winter and spring ozone interannual variability in the troposphere. By J. Liu et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The Science plan of the Integrated Global Greenhouse Gas Information System (IG3IS) has recently been published as
GAW Report, 245. An Integrated Global Greenhouse Gas Information System (IG3IS) Science Implementation Plan

About IG3IS

The implementation of the Paris agreement will require governments to make efforts to limit atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and to track their progress towards achievement of the climate goal set by the agreement in a transparent way.

To support these efforts, the 17th World Meteorological Congress adopted a resolution on the implementation of IG3IS with the aim to expand the observational capacity for greenhouse gases (GHG), extend it to the regional and urban domains, and develop the information systems and modelling frameworks to provide information about GHG emissions to society. The Executive Council of the Wold Meteorological Organization (WMO) further approved IG3IS Science Implementation Plan at its 70th session in June 2018 and IG3IS is now moving to its implementation phase.

Find out more

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

Temperatures across Europe: evidence of time trends. By L.A. Gil-Alana and L. Sauci in Climatic Change.

Water vapour adjustments and responses differ between climate drivers. By Ø. Hodnebrog et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Characteristic time scales of decadal to centennial changes in global surface temperatures over the past 150 years. By J.L. Le Mouël, F. Lopes, V. Courtillot in Earth and Space Science.

Climatology explains intermodel spread in tropical upper tropospheric cloud and relative humidity response to greenhouse warming. By S. Po-Chedley et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Is the net cloud radiative effect constrained to be uniform over the tropical warm pools? By C.J. Wall, D.L. Hartmann, and J.R. Norris in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Discussion papers – open for comment:

Asian Summer Monsoon Anticyclone: Trends and Variability. By G. Basha, M.V. Ratnam, and P. Kishore in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

If you have submitted a SPARC-related session at EGU, please let the SPARC office know!

IGAC’s Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report (TOAR) is being published as a series of papers in the peer-reviewed, open-access journal, Elementa:  Science of the Anthropocene.  The papers are appearing in a Special Feature of Elementa as they are accepted for publication, with the latest paper, TOAR-Observations now available:

From the earliest observations of ozone in the lower atmosphere in the 19th century, both measurement methods and the portion of the globe observed have evolved and changed. In this study, various ozone measurement methods and ozone datasets are reviewed and selected for inclusion in the historical record of background ozone levels, based on relationship of the measurement technique to the modern UV absorption standard, absence of interfering pollutants, representativeness of the well-mixed boundary layer and expert judgement of their credibility.  We found no unambiguous evidence in the measurement record back to 1896 that typical mid-latitude background surface ozone values were below about 20 nmol mol^-1, but there is robust evidence for increases in the temperate and polar regions of the northern hemisphere of 30-70%, with large uncertainty, between the period of historic observations, 1896-1975, and the modern period (1990-2014).  Independent historical observations from balloons and aircraft indicate similar changes in the free troposphere. Changes in the southern hemisphere are much less. Regional representativeness of the available historical observations remains a potential source of large errors, which are difficult to quantify.

Tarasick*, D. W., I. E. Galbally*, O. R. Cooper, M. G. Schultz, G. Ancellet,  T. Leblanc, T. J. Wallington, J. Ziemke, X. Liu, M. Steinbacher, J. Staehelin, C. Vigouroux, J. W. Hannigan, O. García, G. Foret, P. Zanis, E. Weatherhead, I. Petropavlovskikh, H. Worden, M. Osman, J. Liu, K.-L. Chang, A. Gaudel, M. Lin, M. Granados-Muñoz, A. M. Thompson, S. J. Oltmans, J. Cuesta, G. Dufour, V. Thouret, B. Hassler, T. Trickl and J. L. Neu (2019), Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report: Tropospheric ozone from 1877 to 2016, observed levels, trends and uncertainties. Elem Sci Anth, 7(1), DOI: http://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.376.

*coordinating lead authors

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

Stratospheric ozone trends for 1985–2018: sensitivity to recent large variability. By W.T. Ball et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Multiscale extratropical barotropic variability on the subseasonal‐to‐seasonal timescale. By L. Boljka and T.G. Shepherd in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Diagnosing topographic forcing in an atmospheric dataset: the case of the North American Cordillera. By K. Hartung et al. in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Evidence of small-scale quasi-isentropic mixing in ridges of extratropical baroclinic waves. By D. Kunkel et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The Buffer Zone of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation. By A. Match and S. Fueglistaler in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

Unified quantitative observation of coexisting volcanic sulfur dioxide and sulfate aerosols using ground-based Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. By P. Sellitto et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Discussion Papers – open for comment:

Diurnal cycle of clouds extending above the tropical tropopause observed by spaceborne lidar. By T. Dauhut, V. Noël, and I.-A. Dion in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Ice injected into the tropopause by deep convection – Part 2: Over the Maritime Continent. By I.-A. Dion et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Simulation of convective moistening of extratropical lower stratosphere using a numerical weather prediction model. By Z. Qu et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

FESSTVaL (Field Experiment on submesoscale spatio-temporal variability in Lindenberg) is a measurement campaign initiated by the Hans-Ertel-Center for Weather Research. It will take place in the summer months of the year 2020 at the Meteorological Observatory Lindenberg – Richard-Aßmann-Observatorium (MOL-RAO) of the German Weather Service (DWD) near Berlin. During the intensive observation period in July 2020, a summer school is offered by the participating scientists of FESSTVaL, complemented by additional lecturers. As FESSTVaL is a joint project of about a dozen scientists from seven different institutions in Germany, most of them being junior scientists (PhD and Postdoc), the working environment is dynamic and expert knowledge is brought together.

For further information on the campaign, please visit http://fesstval.de

The summer school takes place from 13 to 24 July 2020 in Lindenberg (Mark), Brandenburg, Germany, close to Berlin. It is aimed to MSc and PhD students, and Postdocs in meteorology, physics and related research areas. The seminars, group projects and lectures during FESSTVaL Summer School
are offered by national and international experts. The 12 day long intensive program will provide participants with insights into observing and understanding submesoscale atmospheric dynamics, such as convective scale observations from different platforms, submesoscale dynamics and modeling. The deadline for submission of your application is 30 November 2019. More information and details about the submission can be found at http://fesstval.de/index.php?id=5132&L=2

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