The DynVar community is invited to submit abstracts to the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Open Science Conference (OSC)
The WCRP OSC goals and aims are described on the conference website. The Conference will take place at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel, Denver, Co, USA, 24-28 October 2011.
The WCRP OSC is an opportunity for SPARC DynVar participants to present their work and interact with the broader WCRP community, including participants from all the WCRP projects and groups.
The WCRP OSC will follow much the same format of the SPARC General Assemblies, with the vast majority of contributed papers being poster papers, and with the poster sessions being (for the most part) in the quality part of the diurnal cycle.
Note that to encourage coordination and further integration of research activities within and across WCRP and its core projects, groups are encouraged to self-organize and submit clusters of posters addressing a specific research topic in one of the existing program sessions of the WCRP OSC. For information on how to submit a poster cluster see the poster cluster web page.
Abstract Deadline: 15 May 2011
Financial Assistance Deadline: 15 April 2011
PAST WORKSHOPS
DynVar Workshop 2 (November 2010)
The SPARC DynVar Activity has held its 2nd workshop in Boulder, Colorado, USA, 3-5 November 2010. The Workshop was kindly hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory’s (ESRL) Physical Sciences Division in collaboration with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at University of Colorado, and was held at NOAA ESRL David Skaggs Research Center.
The outcomes of the workshop are reported on the SPARC Newsletter 36 (Manzini et al, p 19) January 2011.
Scientific Programme: Agenda & Book of Abstarcts
Background: The SPARC DynVar Activity long-term goals are to determine the dependence of the mean climate, climate variability, and climate change on stratospheric dynamics as represented in Climate Models. Since the planning of the DynVar Workshop 1 (held in Toronto, Canada, 27-28 March 2008), a number of new works have appeared in the literature contributing to our knowledge on how stratospheric representation operates in climate models. In part because of these advancements, a few climate modeling groups are now planning to undertake the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) experiments with models that include a well-resolved stratosphere. Interest in models with a well-resolved stratosphere has also led to the Stratosphere resolving Historical Forecast Project (SHFP), part of WCRP’s Climate Variability and Predictability Project (CLIVAR), aimed at quantify improvements in actual predictability by initialising and resolving the stratosphere in seasonal forecast systems.
The aim of the SPARC DynVar Workshop 2 was to provide a forum for discussing the scientific advancements in the key areas central to the Activity and for planning on how best the Activity can continue to advance the inclusion of a well-resolved dynamical stratosphere in Climate Models (coupled atmosphere ocean-seaice models) and Earth System Models (including also atmospheric chemistry and/or biogeochemical cycles).
Presentations were called for (but not restricted to) the following highlighted key areas:
- Influence of the stratosphere on the tropospheric circulation, on the ocean circulation via air-sea interactions, and on the cryosphere (in particular the sea ice field);
- Role of the stratosphere in the tropospheric circulation response to climate change, and the implications of this for oceanic and cryospheric climate change responses;
- Mechanisms of two-way stratosphere-troposphere coupling in climate models, to understand why the behaviors of models differ between each other.
Participation from modeling groups was called for:
- Presentation of the status of the CMIP5 runs with models with a well-resolved stratosphere;
- Discussion on how to best analyze, make full use, and exchange knowledge from the ensembles of CMIP5 runs, with the role of the stratosphere in focus;
- Discussion how to best analyze CLIVAR’s SHFP runs;
- New results and reports on experience gained from the analysis of the SPARC Chemistry-Climate Model
COMBINE project side event: The SPARC DynVar Workshop 2 is organized in collaboration with the COMBINE EC project. A COMBINE side event (by invitation) took place the day before the workshop, 2 November 2010. The COMBINE side event was kindly hosted by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
SPONSORS: CIRES, COMBINE, NOAA, NCAR, and SPARC’s WCRP.
DynVar Workshop Committe: E Manzini, M A Giorgetta, J Perlwitz, L M Polvani, F Sassi, and A Scaife
Synthesis from DynVar Workshop 1 (March 2008)
This document summarizes the results from the survey that was distributed prior to the DynVar planning workshop. The outcome of the Workshop is reported in the SPARC Newsletter 32 (Kushner et al., SPARC Dynamics and Variability Project (DynVar): Plans and Status, SPARC Newsletter 32, 13-16, 2009).

