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)

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

Forcing the East Asian summer monsoon. By H. Jesse Smith in Science.

On the Cause of Recent Variations in Lower Stratospheric Ozone. By M.P. Chipperfield et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

The Impact of Stratospheric Ozone Feedbacks on Climate Sensitivity Estimates. By P.J. Nowack et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Large-scale tropospheric transport in the Chemistry–Climate Model Initiative (CCMI) simulations. By C. Orbe et al. in Atmospherc Chemistry and Physics.

Convective Hydration of the Upper Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere. By M.R. Schoeberl et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

The downward influence of uncertainty in the Northern Hemisphere stratospheric polar vortex response to climate change. By I.R. Simpson et al. in the Journal of Climate.

Effects of Different Stratospheric SO2 Injection Altitudes on Stratospheric Chemistry and Dynamics. By S. Tilmes et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Modulation of the MJO and North Pacific Storm Track Relationship by the QBO. By J. Wang et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Spatial and temporal variability of interhemispheric transport times. By X. Wu et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Discussion papers open for comment:

Northern Hemisphere continental winter warming following the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption: Reconciling models and observations. By L.M. Polvani, A. Banerjee, and A. Schmidt in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The ACP/AMT/ESSD special issue on WAVAS-II has been re-opened. The new closing deadline is now 1 October 2019.

 Find the current list of papers included in the special issue.