Ulrich Schumann and Jean-Pierre Pommereau, December
10, 2002
Invitation
to
and
First
Announcement of
a
Workshop on Tropical Meteorology and Chemistry,
to be held at Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich,
Germany,
May
14-16, 2003
This workshop deals with tropical meteorology
and chemistry as needed in connection with ongoing and future scientific
projects in the tropics concerning climate, air composition and related
meteorological, physical and chemical processes.
The tropics are of increasing importance for
our understanding of global changes in atmospheric dynamics and the chemistry.
The stratospheric ozone layer, the oxidising capacity in the upper troposphere
and the state of the global climate depend crucially on processes in the
tropical regions, in particular at the tropical tropopause. Deep convection
near the inner tropical convergence zone and within Monsoon systems contributes
in as yet unquantified ways to aerosol formation, transports water vapour,
contributes to cirrus formation, and transports various trace gases with impact
on upper tropospheric chemistry and on the stratospheric ozone layer. For
assessments of anthropogenic contributions to the nitrogen oxides budget (such
as from air traffic), the natural sources need to be known. The global budget
of nitrogen oxides is very uncertain mainly because of unknown sources of
nitrogen oxides from lightning, most of which occurs over the continents in the
tropics.
The organisers of this workshop are involved in
two European projects that are being performed in the coming years in the
tropics, HIBISCUS and TROCCINOX. TROCCINOX is a "Tropical Convection,
Cirrus, and Nitrogen Oxides Experiment." TROCCINOX will perform a field
experiment in the tropics including measurements with two fully instrumented
research aircraft: The Russian M55 Geophysica and the German Falcon will probe
the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere on the synoptic scale and on the
mesoscale at the tropical destination and during the transfer flights. HIBISCUS
deals with the chemical species involved in stratospheric ozone depletion and
transported vertically in the tropics from the surface to the tropopause by
deep convection. HIBISCUS will make in situ measurements with a variety of
instruments flown on long duration balloons for several weeks in the tropical
lower stratosphere, as well as on small balloons for few a hours in Brazil
during the summer convective season.
This workshop serves to collect the knowledge
on the relevant processes with respect to tropical meteorology and chemistry
and to identify open questions and possible answers that might be achieved by
ongoing and future projects in the tropics.
The following is a preliminary outline of the
Workshop. Details are open to comments, additions and changes.
Date: May 14-16, 2003, - i.e. Wednesday, May 14, 9 am to Friday, May 16, 12
am.
(The afternoon of the last day will be used for
a follow-on workshop on project aspects, ending Friday, May 16, 4 pm).
Objective: To review background knowledge leading up to the forefront of science
on Tropical Meteorology and Chemistry as related to the EU-Projects TROCCINOX
and HIBISCUS and other tropical projects.
Structure:
Wednesday, May 14:
1) Overview on the TROCCINOX and HIBISCUS projects (Ulrich Schumann and
Jean-Pierre Pommereau)
2) Introduction to tropical meteorology and deep convection (Roger
Smith)
3) Vertical transport in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL), the
Brewer-Dobson circulation, and the tropical barrier (George Craig)
Thursday, May 15:
4) Cirrus, sub-visible cirrus, aerosols and water vapour transport in
the tropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, including dehydration by
sedimenting ice particles (Thomas Peter)
5) Air chemistry in the tropical troposphere and stratosphere (John
Pyle)
6) Lightning and NOx (Hartmut Höller)
Friday, May 16:
7) Experience from the LBA and other previous and ongoing projects
(Meinrat Andreae)
8) Final Discussion of Insight and open questions and possible means to
address the questions within the forthcoming projects (chairman J.-P. Pommereau
and U. Schumann)
The seminars 1 to 7 will take place in morning and afternoon sessions. 2
sessions in the morning and one in the late afternoon or evening, combined
coffee breaks/poster sessions of 1 hour, and one hour discussion and
conclusions each day.
Lecturers: The lecturers are asked to review the background knowledge and
examples of latest achievements based not only on their own but also other
related studies.
It is expected that discussion and poster
presentations are provided by all participants.
Participation: up to 100 scientists, based on expressions of interest. Participants
are requested to contribute to the discussions, possibly with poster
presentations, and help to set up summaries after the workshop. If suitable,
the participants may decide to produce a set of proceedings after the workshop.
Invitation: Scientists who want to participate are kindly asked to submit the
following information
·
Name
and email address
·
short
explanation of your scientific interest with respect to the topic of this
workshop,
·
topic
of a Poster contribution,
·
topic
of a short discussion contribution (5 minutes),
·
any
suggestion and comment
to Dorothee.kopitz@dlr.de by March 15, 2003.
The next version of the programme will be distributed and announced by
end of March 2003 under http://www.dlr.de/ipa/Aktuelles/Veranstaltungen.
Number of participants: about 100 (less than 150).
Venue: Seminar-room at DLR Oberpfaffenhofen, 25 km south-west of Munich,
Germany
Fees: 50 Euro for coffee and lunch etc. Travel costs have to be covered by
the participants themselves.