The Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) is one of the most fundamental metrics defining the status of global climate change and expectations for continued global warming. WCRP Core Projects work together for a new WCRP-wide initiative to identify research goals and opportunities for Earth’s Energy Imbalance and to strengthen future international scientific collaboration with experts for EEI assessments.

Save the dates for this opportunity for international scientific collaborations: The WCRP workshop will be held on  13-16 November 2018 in Toulouse, France. Further details can be found here and will be updated through the websites of WCRP and its Core Projects.

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

Scale-Dependent Background-Error Covariance Localization: Evaluation in a Global Deterministic Weather Forecasting System. By J-F. Caron and M. Buehner in the Monthly Weather Review.

A warming tropical central Pacific dries the lower stratosphere. By Q. Ding and Q. Fu in Climate Dynamics.

Consistency of climate change projections from multiple global and regional model intercomparison projects. By J. Fernández et al. in Climate Dynamics.

Interdecadal variability of the Warm Arctic and Cold Eurasia pattern and its North Atlantic origin. By M.-Kyung Sung, S-H Kim, B-M. Kim, and Y-S. Choi in the Journal of Climate.

Directional Absorption of Parameterized Mountain Waves and Its Influence on the Wave Momentum Transport in the Northern Hemisphere. By X. Xu et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Coupled interannual variability of the Hadley and Ferrel cells. By P. Zurita-Gotor and P. Álvarez-Zapatero in the Journal of Climate.

The abstract submission deadline for the SPARC General Assmebly (1-5 October 2018 in Kyoto, Japan) has been extended.

>> Submit abstract now

The Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report (TOAR) is a current IGAC activity with a mission to provide the research community with an up-to-date scientific assessment of tropospheric ozone’s global distribution and trends from the surface to the tropopause.

Guided by this mission, TOAR has two goals:

1. Produce the first tropospheric ozone assessment report using all available surface observations and based on the peer-reviewed literature and new analyses.
2. Generate easily accessible, documented data on ozone exposure and dose metrics at hundreds of measurement sites around the world (urban and non-urban), freely accessible for research on the global-scale impact of ozone on climate, human health and crop/ecosystem productivity.

The report is being written as a series of eight stand-alone publications to be submitted for peer-review to Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, an open-access, non-profit science journal founded by five US research Universities and published by University of California Press. As the papers become available each will be posted to the TOAR comment webpage for a 30-day open comment period. We invite members of the atmospheric and biological sciences communities as well as the general public to read the papers and provide comments if they wish to do so.

One more TOAR paper has just become available for open comment:

Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report: Tropospheric ozone observations – How well do we know tropospheric ozone changes?

Author Team: David Tarasick, Ian E. Galbally, Owen R. Cooper, Martin G. Schultz, Gerard Ancellet, Thierry Leblanc, Tim J. Wallington, Jerry Ziemke, Xiong Liu, Martin Steinbacher, Johannes Staehelin, Corinne Vigouroux, James Hannigan, Omaira García, Gilles Foret, Prodromos Zanis, Elizabeth Weatherhead, Irina Petropavlovskikh, Helen Worden, Mohammed Osman, Jane Liu, Meiyun Lin, Maria Granados-Muñoz, Anne M. Thompson, Samuel J. Oltmans, Juan Cuesta, Gaelle Dufour, Valerie Thouret, Birgit Hassler and Thomas Trickl

The paper can be downloaded from: http://igacproject.org/activities/TOAR/OpenComments

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

Overview of experiment design and comparison of models participating in phase 1 of the SPARC Quasi-Biennial Oscillation initiative (QBOi). By N. Butchart et al. in Geoscientific Model Development.

How Sudden Stratospheric Warming Affects the Whole Atmosphere. By N.M. Pedatella et al. in Earth & Space Science News.

Spring Arctic Atmospheric Preconditioning: Do Not Rule Out Shortwave Radiation Just Yet. By J. Sedlar in the Journal of Climate.

Discussion papers – open for comment

Requirements for a global data infrastructure in support of CMIP6. By V. Balaji et al. in Geoscientific Model Development Discussions.

WMO GAW is currently seeking input on the draft publication entitled Low-cost sensors for the measurement of atmospheric composition: overview of topic and future applications. Comments will be accepted until 31 March 2018.

To turn in comments, please use the excel spread sheet from the link below and send your comments via email to

Download draft (PDF)

Download comment file (MS Excel)

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

MJO prediction skill of the subseasonal-to-seasonal prediction models. By Y. Lim, S-W Son, and D. Kim in the Journal of Climate.

Northern Hemisphere Stratospheric Ozone Depletion Caused by Solar Proton Events: The Role of the Polar Vortex. By M.H. Denton et al. in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Rossby Wave Propagation into the Northern Hemisphere Stratosphere: The Role of Zonal Phase Speed. By D.I.V. Domeisen, O. Martius, and B. Jiménez-Esteve. In the Geophysical Research Letters.

Does extreme El Niño have a different effect on the stratosphere in boreal winter than its moderate counterpart? By X. Zhou et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

On the Origin of the Solar Cycle Modulation of the Southern Annular Mode. By Y. Kuroda in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

On the Linkage Between the Asian Summer Monsoon and Tropopause Folds. By Y. Wu et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Discussion papers – open for comment

Gravity Waves excited during a Minor Sudden Stratospheric Warming. By A. Dörnbrack et al. in Atmospheric Chemsitry and Physics Discussions.

Polar stratospheric cloud climatology based on CALIPSO spaceborne lidar measurements from 2006–2017. By M.C. Pitts, L.R. Poole, and R. Gonzalez in Atmospheric Chamistry and Physics Discussions.

Limited angle tomography of mesoscale gravity waves by the infrared limb-sounder GLORIA. By I. kirsch et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions.

The 20th Conference on the Middle Atmosphere will take place 6-10 January 2019 in Phoenix, Arizona at the AMS annual meeting.  We are asking if you would please consider proposing a session topic.  The deadline is April 1st.  If you think your proposed session would be a good candidate for a joint session with another conference (such as Climate Variability and Change or Atmospheric Chemistry), please make a note in the Comments section.

Submission portal: https://ams.confex.com/ams/2019Annual/cfs.cgi

Submission deadline: 1 April

We hope to see you in Phoenix next January!

Amy Butler and Sean Davis (co-organizers)

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

Changes in stratospheric transport and mixing during sudden stratospheric warmings. By A. de la Cámara, M. Abalos, and P. Hitchcock in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Downward Wave Coupling between the Stratosphere and Troposphere under Future Anthropogenic Climate Change. By S.W. Lubis et al in the Journal of Climate.

Atmospheric QBO and ENSO indices with high vertical resolution from GNSS radio occultation temperature measurements. By H. Wilhelmsen et al. in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Verification in the presence of observation errors: Bayesian point of view. By L. Duc and K. Saito in the Quaterly Journal of the Royal meteorological Society.

Dynamical core in atmospheric model does matter in the simulation of Arctic climate. By S.-Y. Jun, S.-J. Choi, and B.-M. Kim in the Geophysical Research Letters.

QBO-MJO Connection. By C. Zhang, and B. Zhang in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Implications of potential future grand solar minimum for ozone layer and climate. By P. Arsenovic et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The International Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution (iCACGP) invites nominations for the Paul Crutzen Award for early career scientists 2018.

Details about the prize and nomination procedure can be found here (download PDF).

The deadline for submission of the full package of nominations is the 10 June 2018. The decision will be announced by mid-July 2018.