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.

 


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