- New ways of viewing the atmosphere through observations and re-analyses.
A key core activity of SPARC is understanding the current state of the atmosphere and developing and supporting methods to understand long term changes in climate and composition. Linked SPARC activities include ATC, LOTUS, TUNER and S-RIP. SPARC science in this area supports international assessments like the WMO/UNEP ozone assessment and IPCC. In this theme we invite contributions that highlight new understanding of the atmosphere through new measurement techniques, new products including re-analysis and new understanding developed from analysis of observed data. - New understanding of atmospheric composition and variability.
Major global environmental challenges are linked to changing atmospheric composition. SPARC has a long history of sponsoring research that helps to further our understanding of the processes controlling composition. Linked SPARC activities include, OCTV-UTLS Polar Stratospheric Clouds, SOLARIS-HEPPA and SSiRC. In this theme, we invite contributions that provide new insights into observation or modelling of atmospheric composition change.
- Coupling between climate, radiation, and dynamics.
Coupling between chemical, radiative and dynamical processes is at the heart of global change and SPARC science. Linked SPARC activities include ACAM, CCMI and DAWG. In this theme we invite contributions that provide a holistic view of this coupling and between processes in different parts of the Earth system.
- How do dynamical processes shape climate variability and trends?
Although much progress has been made in understanding and predicting climate variability and trends on global scales, a large inter-model spread in projected global atmospheric circulation changes remains. This has implications for predictions of regional and local climate change, and for understanding and predicting changes in weather and climate extremes. In this theme, we invite contributions that examine atmospheric dynamics and its climatic impacts, on global and regional scales, both for the mean and increasingly frequent and damaging extreme climate events. This includes the role of dynamics both in tropics and extra-tropics, including influence from atmosphere-ocean interactions and coupling with the middle atmosphere. We specifically invite studies making use of data resulted from SPARC activities, such as DynVarMIP, QBOi, Gravity Waves, and SATIO-TCS.
- Climate prediction from sub-seasonal to decades.
Adapting to our changing climate will increasingly require useful, skilful predictions on a range of timescales from weather, through sub-seasonal to seasonal and beyond. The SPARC community has played a significant role in drawing on knowledge of the atmosphere to identify ways to improve predictions. Linked SPARC activities include SNAP and QBOi. In this session we invite contributions that examine new sources of predictability or understanding of where currrent prediction systems could be improved.
- Past and future of SPARC.
In this session, a series of invited talks will outline the achievements of SPARC over the past 30 years and provide an overview of where SPARC is heading, including presentation of the new SPARC strategy. Three distinguished former SPARC co-chairs will reflect on where SPARC has been and its key accomplishments. This will be followed by an overview presentation of the new SPARC strategy and links to WCRP’s core projects and new lighthouse activities. The session will finish with three talks on topics of focus of this new SPARC strategy.