7-8 December 2019 University of California – Berkeley, USA

More information will be available soon at: www.catchscience.org

CATCH is a jointly sponsored IGAC and SOLAS Activity. The CATCH mission is to facilitate atmospheric chemistry research within the international community, with a focus on natural processes specific to cold regions of the Earth. Cold regions include areas which are seasonally or permanently covered by snow and ice, from the high mountains to the polar ice sheets and sea ice zones as well as regions where ice clouds that undergo chemistry are found.

Dear members of the WCRP Community,

 We are delighted to report that the final draft of the WCRP Strategic Plan 2019-2028 is now available:

 https://www.wcrp-climate.org/wcrp-sp

 Note that while the Plan still requires the official approval of the WCRP Co-sponsors, it is not envisioned that any further changes will be made. We will notify you again once all three Co-sponsors have given their final approval. 

 We should all congratulate ourselves on completing this first step in the process of delivering a WCRP that will be fit for purpose and fit for the future. Particular thanks go to Guy Brasseur and Amanda Lynch for their outstanding leadership and for all their hard work over the two years that it took to develop this Plan; to the JSC Officers of 2018, Anny Cazenave, Mauricio M. Mata, and Martin Visbeck, for all the time that they invested in the process; and to Detlef Stammer and Helen Cleugh for addressing the Co-sponsor comments and pulling together the final document.

 We now look forward to implementing this Plan and to build on the enthusiasm and momentum that was apparent at the Implementation and Planning Meeting and JSC Session just a few weeks ago. We will be in touch soon with further details on the next steps of this process.

 Kind regards

 Pavel Kabat and the WCRP Joint Planning Staff

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

Subseasonal‐to‐seasonal predictability of the Southern Hemisphere eddy‐driven jet during austral spring and early summer. By N.J. Byrne, T.G. Shepherd, I. Plichtchouk in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Attribution of the Hemispheric Asymmetries in Trends of Stratospheric Trace Gases Inferred from Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) Measurements. By Y. Han et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

IAMAS: a century of international cooperation in atmospheric sciences. By M.C. MacCracken and H. Volkert in History of Geo- and Space Sciences.

Large impacts, past and future, of ozone‐depleting substances on Brewer‐Dobson circulation trends: A multi‐model assessment. By L.M. Polvani et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Implication of strongly increased atmospheric methane concentrations for chemistry–climate connections. By F. Winterstein 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).

Seasonal characteristics of trace gas transport into the extratropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. By Y. Inai et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

As a climate researcher, should I change my air-travel habits? Career Column in Nature by S.E. Kjellman

Differences in potential and actual skill in a decadal prediction experiment. By G.J. Boer, V.V. Kharin, and W.J. Merryfield in Climate Dynamics.

The role of methane in future climate strategies: mitigation potentials and climate impacts. By M. Harmsen et al. in Climatic Changes.

Influence of ENSO and MJO on the zonal structure of tropical tropopause inversion layer using high-resolution temperature profiles retrieved from COSMIC GPS Radio Occultation. By Noersomadi, T. Tsuda, and M. Fujiwara in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Increase in CFC-11 emissions from eastern China based on atmospheric observations. By M. Rigby et al. in Nature.
See also: Nature-Interview with M. Rigby

Effects of the Madden–Julian Oscillation on 2-m air temperature prediction over China during boreal winter in the S2S database. By Y. Zhou et al. in Climate Dynamics.

A special issue on ENSO diversity has been published in Climate Dynamics.

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

Robust climate change research: a review on multi-model analysis. By H. Duan et al. in the Environmental Research Letters.

Diagnostics of a WN2‐type Major Sudden Stratospheric Warming Event in February 2018 using a new Three‐Dimensional Wave Activity Flux. By Y. Harada et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Gravity waves in the winter stratosphere over the Southern Ocean: high-resolution satellite observations and 3-D spectral analysis. By N.P. Hindley et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

How does cloud overlap affect the radiative heating in the tropical upper troposphere/lower stratosphere? By E. Johansson et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

An Analysis of the Hines and Warner‐McIntyre‐Scinocca Nonorographic Gravity Wave Drag Parameterizations. By M. Majdzadeh and G.P. Klaassen in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Detecting human influence on the temperature changes in Central Asia. By D. Peng et al. in Climate Dynamics.

Observation and attribution of temperature trends near the stratopause from HALOE. By E. Remsberg in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Variability of temperature and ozone in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere from multi-satellite observations and reanalysis data. By M. Shangguan, W. Wang, and S. Jin in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

A numerical process study on the rapid transport of stratospheric air down to the surface over western North America and the Tibetan Plateau. By B. Škerlak et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Multitimescale variations in modeled stratospheric water vapor derived from three modern reanalysis products. By M. Tao et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Dear colleagues from the WCRP community,

Please find under the below link a call for (self-)nominations for membership in six WCRP expert panels (WDAC, WMAC, WGCM, WGSIP, WGNE, and CORDEX-SAT), with a deadline of 20 June 2019: https://www.wcrp-climate.org/news/wcrp-news/1487-call-for-nominations-for-six-wcrp-expert-panels-2

We would also appreciate your help in forwarding this call within your networks as appropriate.

Furthermore, the World Meteorological Organization is calling for applications for membership of its proposed Scientific Advisory Panel, with a deadline of 31 May: https://www.wcrp-climate.org/news/wcrp-news/1481-open-call-for-membership-of-the-wmo-scientific-advisory-panel-sap .

The call for abstracts for the 2019 International Conference on Regional Climate (ICRC-CORDEX 2019) has been extended to May 30

see http://icrc-cordex2019.cordex.org/abstractcall for details.

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

The SPARC water vapour assessment II: profile-to-profile comparisons of stratospheric and lower mesospheric water vapour data sets obtained from satellites. By S. Lossow et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

The role of the stratospheric polar vortex for the austral jet response to greenhouse gas forcing. By P. Ceppi and T.G. Shepherd in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Model Variable Augmentation (MVA) for Diagnostic Assessment of Sensitivity Analysis Results. By J. Mai and B.A. Tolson in Water Ressources Research.

Age of air from different reanalyses and methods. By F. Ploeger et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

What is the impact of additional tropical observations on a modern data assimilation system? By L.C. Slivinski et al. in the Monthly Weather Review.

Lagrangian simulations of the transport of young air masses to the top of the Asian monsoon anticyclone and into the tropical pipe. By B. Vogel et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Climatology and dynamics of the link between dry intrusions and cold fronts during winter. Part I: global climatology. By J.L. Catto and S. Raveh-Rubin in Climate Dynamics.

Climatology and dynamics of the link between dry intrusions and cold fronts during winter, Part II: Front-centred perspective. By S. Raveh-Rubin and J.L. Catto in Climate Dynamics.

Discussion papers – open for comment:

Revisiting the Agung 1963 volcanic forcing – impact of one or two eruptions. By U. Niemeier, C. Timmreck, and K. Krüger 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).

An Objective Procedure for Delineating the Circumpolar Vortex. By N. Bushra and R.V. Rohli in Earth and Space Science.

A New Road Map for Assessing the Effects of Solar Geoengineering. By T. Cook in Earth & Space Science News (EOS).

Eddy influences on the Hadley circulation. By N.A. Davis and T. Birner in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems.

US Temperatures: Time Trends and Persistence. By L.A. Gil-Alana and L. Sauci in the International Journal of Limatology.

Extreme weather events in early summer 2018 connected by a recurrent hemispheric wave-7 pattern. By K. Kornhuber et al. in the Environmental research letters.

Ural Blocking as a driver of early winter stratospheric warmings. By Y. Peings in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Mechanism of ozone loss under enhanced water vapour conditions in the mid-latitude lower stratosphere in summer. By S. Robrecht et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Inference of stochastic parametrizations for model error treatment using nested ensemble Kalman filters. By G. Scheffler, J. Ruiz, and M. Pulido in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Challenges to the sustainability of climate services in Europe. By M.B. Soares and C. Buontempo in WIREs Climate Change.

Drivers and surface signal of inter‐annual variability of boreal stratospheric final warmings. By R. Thiéblemont et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Global tropopause altitudes in radiosondes and reanalyses. By T. Xian and C.R. Homeyer in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Response of the northern stratosphere to the Madden‐Julian oscillation during boreal winter. By C. Yang et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

The global warming hiatus has faded away: an analysis of 2014–2016 global surface air temperatures. By C. Zhang, et al. in the International Journal of Climatology.

Climate models can correctly simulate the continuum of global-average temperature variability. By F. Zhu et al. in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Discussion papers – open for comment:

Perfluorocyclobutane (PFC-318, c-C4F8) in the global atmosphere. By J. Mühle et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Impact of convectively lofted ice on the seasonal cycle of tropical lower stratospheric water vapor. By X. Wang et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The deadline to submit abstracts for the CCMi science workshop and summer school

August 7 – 9, 2019 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong

has been extended until 10 May 2019.

You can find more information and a link to the IGAC Event Abstract Submission System to register and submit abstracts on the workshop webpage:
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/sci/essc/tgabi/CCMI-WS/ccmi_2019_hongkong_welcome.html