International climate change scientists will gather in Exeter next week to look at the scientific aspects of the stabilisation of climate change.

The conference, taking place at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research from February 1-3, will look to advance scientific understanding of and encourage debate on the long-term implications of climate change.

Key questions to be discussed at the Conference include:

* What are the key impacts, for different regions and sectors, and for the world as a whole, of different levels of climate change?

* What would such levels of climate change impacts imply in terms of greenhouse gas levels and how might emissions be managed to meet such levels?

* What technological options are there to stabilise greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, taking into account costs and uncertainties?

Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: “This scientific conference will make a valuable contribution to our G8 Presidency and our wider aim of reinvigorating the climate change debate and stimulating further engagement for future action.

“We hope it will provide new information on the risks of climate change and provide a firmer basis for discussing long-term stabilisation action. However, it is not of course, a policy negotiation.”

“We also look to the conference to review practical ways of achieving emission reduction required to meet different stabilisation goals.”

The conference comes at a mid-way point between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Third Assessment Report, published in 2001 and its fourth report, anticipated in 2007.

The IPCC concluded in 2001, that there “is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.”

Original press release: Stabilisation of Greenhouse Gases Science Conference - Setting the Scene (UK Government News Network)

The first signs of ozone loss have now been observed in the Arctic this winter, and large scale losses are expected to occur if the cold conditions persist. Overall temperatures in the ozone layer are the lowest for 50 years having been consistently low for the past two months.

Since late November large areas of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) - clouds in the ozone layer - have been present over the Arctic region at altitudes around 20 kilometres. They are now the largest in the last 20 years, the period when the ozone-depleting compounds have been high. These conditions could make ozone depletion very likely.

The chemical balance in the stratosphere is changed significantly by the presence of these clouds, altering the breakdown products from CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) so that rapid chemical ozone destruction can occur in the presence of sunlight. If the Arctic stratosphere remains cold during February and March, large ozone loss is expected to take place as sunlight returns to northern latitudes. This could lead to increased levels of ultraviolet radiation in inhabited areas in the northern part of Europe.

Scientists from the EU SCOUT-O3 Integrated Project have been studying the links between stratospheric ozone and climate change in the Arctic since May 2004, with the aim of providing predictions of future ozone and other stratospheric changes as well as the associated UV and climate impact. The project is co-ordinated at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry and has 59 partner institutions with over 200 scientists involved from 19 countries.

The scientists are following the situation in the Arctic closely using a combination of measurements and atmospheric models. Measurements from the ground-based network of atmospheric observing stations and from satellites are being combined to investigate the ozone loss in the coming weeks.

The extreme conditions are of major concern and scientists will be addressing a number of questions: How large will the ozone loss be? What will be the impact on UV radiation? Are the conditions more favourable for large ozone losses than before?

“The meteorological conditions we are now witnessing resemble and even surpass the conditions of the 1999-2000 winter- when the worst ozone loss to date was observed,” said Dr. Neil Harris of the European Ozone Research Coordinating Unit, Cambridge, UK, and one of the coordinators of the SCOUT-O3 project.

“However, it is still too early to predict the temperature development in February and March, which are the crucial months for ozone loss in the Arctic. We will watch the development closely from day to day, and will inform the public and our authorities if the situation becomes worrying,” concludes Dr. Harris

The cold conditions have worsened during the month of January, and in the last few days the geographical extent of PSCs has reached values which are much larger than ever observed in the Arctic.

“Preliminary analysis of data from the international ozonesonde network shows the first signs of depletion at around 20 km altitude. Given the unusual situation we have intensified the measurements. It is not yet clear how the ozone layer will respond to the cold conditions, but we will find it out,” said Dr. Markus Rex, from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, who coordinates the Arctic ozone loss studies in SCOUT-O3.

“Overall, measured by the extent and persistence of conditions for PSC formation, the situation is now colder than anything I have seen in the Arctic before. In particular, the large extent of ice clouds gives reason for concern,” added Dr. Rex.

Original press release: Record low temperatures in Arctic ozone layer - first signs of ozone loss (Cambridge University)

The British government says it is now working on a strategy to adapt to the effects of increasing climate change.

Efforts have till now been focused on trying to avert the prospect through reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases scientists say are responsible.

The environment department says it is committed to publish the adaptation strategy before the end of this year.

Complete article: UK works for climate adaptation (BBC)

A sharp rise in global temperatures about 50 million years ago may have been responsible for the evolution of bats, Science magazine reports.

This warming is linked to an explosion in the diversity of other mammals, but little was known about bat evolution.

New DNA data traces the origin of four major bat lineages to a brief period in the Eocene epoch when the average global temperature rose by about 7C.

Complete article: Bat evolution linked to warming (BBC News)

BOULDER - A new computer for issuing daily weather forecasts over Antarctica will arrive at the National Center for Atmospheric Research on Monday, January 31. NCAR scientists will use the new IBM e1350 to run the Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (AMPS), a computer model based at NCAR that issues operational forecasts important for researchers stationed in Antarctica. The forecasts are especially critical during rescue operations.

“This computer is a tremendous boost in our ability to support science and logistics in Antarctica,” says Jordan Powers, project leader for AMPS, a joint effort by NCAR and Ohio State University.

The IBM e1350 will be able to run a 20-kilometer (12-mile) version of AMPS about four times faster than the current system runs a coarser 30-km (19-mile) version. Refining the model’s grid to 12 miles will capture small-scale cloud systems and other atmospheric events in even the most remote areas of Antarctica. They also intend to incorporate NCAR’s newest forecasting system, the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF), into AMPS.

Although the AMPS model’s primary use is to provide daily weather reports for United States Antarctic Program, Powers points out that many other nations rely on these forecasts. When the German supply ship Magdalena Oldendorff became trapped in packed ice during the Antarctic winter in 2002, the South African Weather Service used AMPS forecasts to guide a rescue ship to pick up the passengers. Last year, rescuers turned to AMPS forecasts again when flying to the South Pole to evacuate an ill researcher.

The National Science Foundation, NCAR’s primary sponsor, funded the computer through a special award from its Division of Atmospheric Sciences, with research support from the NSF Office of Polar Programs.

“The IBM e1350 system acquired to support AMPS is a relatively inexpensive yet powerful supercomputer. It’s designed to meet near-term modeling needs, but it can also be expanded to accommodate possible future increases in AMPS model resolution and complexity,” says Tom Engel of NCAR’s Scientific Computing Division. SCD will begin installation Monday.

Powers and team will initially use a special configuration of the widely used MM5 mesoscale weather model to run AMPS. After the transition from the MM5 to WRF, they will extend AMPS to run twice-daily 15-km (9-mile) weather forecasts over all of Antarctica. Each forecast will require between 4 and 5.5 hours of computing time.

With a peak computational capability of nearly 600 billion calculations per second, the e1350 is well suited to its forecasting tasks. It also brings more than 270 gigabytes of memory and 3 terabytes of disk capacity. It will be connected to NCAR’s massive data storage system and local area network via Ethernet links.

Complete article: NCAR to Acquire New Computer for Antarctic Weather Forecasts (NCAR)

An international team of scientists embarked this week on a journey to improve modeling of global-scale air quality and climate change predictions by conducting high quality measurements of the Arctic region’s atmosphere.

The Polar Aura Validation Experiment (PAVE) will gather information to validate data from NASA’s Aura satellite, launched in July 2004. PAVE is the third in a series of planned Aura validation and science missions. These missions will help understand the transport and transformation of gases and aerosols in the lower atmosphere (troposphere), and their exchange with those in the lower stratosphere, the layer just above the troposphere. PAVE takes place from Jan. 24 to Feb. 9.

“In addition to providing important validation for the various Aura data products, PAVE brings together a full NASA complement of space-based and suborbital measurements to study the atmospheric chemistry and transport of gases and aerosols in this sensitive region of our planet,” said Dr. Michael Kurylo, Program Scientist for PAVE, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The information from this campaign will aid in understanding how changing atmospheric composition, associated with climate change, might affect the recovery of the Earth’s ozone layer that is anticipated to occur over the next several decades,” he said.

In particular, PAVE focuses on the Arctic region of the Northern Hemisphere, where winter chemistry has led to significant seasonal reduction of the stratospheric ozone layer in many years, over more than a decade. The ozone layer restricts the amount of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation that reaches the Earth. Depletion of this protective layer can have harmful effects on humans and other ecosystems.

NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory and high-altitude balloons are collecting valuable science data, especially on ozone and ozone-destroying chemicals, using a suite of atmospheric remote sensing and “in situ” instruments. The aircraft, operated by NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., is flying the PAVE mission from Pease International Tradeport, Portsmouth, N.H. Balloons are being launched from the European Sounding Rocket Range (ESRANGE) facility in Sweden.

The study is focusing on obtaining in situ and remote sensing measurements of the arctic region for validation of the Aura satellite. Information gathered during PAVE will be combined with data from Aura to improve modeling of global-scale air quality, ozone and climate change predictions.

Instruments on board the DC-8 are characterizing upper tropospheric and stratospheric gases inside and outside the Arctic polar region to study ozone depletion chemistry. Such flights also permit measurement of the outflow of gases from the North American continent, thereby contributing to an understanding of how regional pollutants are distributed in the hemisphere.

Scientists will make remote sensing measurements (extending many kilometers away from the aircraft) of tropospheric and stratospheric ozone, aerosols, temperature, nitric acid, HCl, ClO and other ozone-related chemicals. These are complemented by measurements of components such as ozone, methane, water vapor, carbon monoxide, nitric acid and nitrous oxide, in the atmosphere immediately surrounding the aircraft.

Major PAVE partners include the University of New Hampshire, Durham; University of California-Berkeley; University of Bremen, Germany; National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colo.; the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington; Koninklijk Netherlands Meteorological Institute; and Los Gatos Research, Inc., Mountain View, Calif.

Original press release: International Science Team Measures Arctic’s Atmosphere (NASA)