SASAS Conference

South African Society for Atmospheric Scientists (SASAS) host an annual conference to bring together the Atmospheric Scientists and interested parties (agriculture, atmospheric chemists, hydrologists, oceanographers) a chance to meet and present their current research.

This year Climate Systems Analysis Group (CSAG) were tasked with running the conference. SASAS was held at Waterval in Tulbagh, a team building and conference venue just outside the picturesque wine producing town. There was snow on the mountains and fog in the mornings..nice and chilly.

The theme this year was BEYOND THE BOX. Trying to slowly shuffle atmospheric scientists from the traditional methods to the innovative. The conference structure changed to include 2 new sections; Grill the Climatologist and Beyond the Box.

Grill the Climatologist consisted of thought provoking questions put before a panel of three scientists. The questions were anonymously submitted to the chairman of the session. They included geoengineering, why we bother running more simulations when we can't cope with what we have already and carbon trading.

Beyond the Box was split into 2 sections, a short introduction by four scientists on what they think is the future of atmospheric science. These presentations highlighted the current failures and their visions of hope. The second section expanded on these ideas and included a few extra presentations on innovative approaches to climate science.

A few take home messages from this conference are that carbon trading is a disastrous idea, geoengineering is not a solution and that we need to stop looking to new and better models and tell a story with the data we already have.

Journal Club MTG8: Isoprene emissions

Today's article "The effect of elevated CO2, soil and atmospheric water deficit and seasonal phenology on leaf and ecosystem isoprene emission" by Emiliano Pegoraro describes an experimental biosphere laboratory in that looks at stresses to cottonwood plantations and their responses with respect to isoprenes. The experiment ran over a few years, and looked specifically at the fall of 2000, fall of 2002 and spring of 2003 to cover the range of phenological influences. The plantations were controlled, one with present day CO2 levels and one with elevated CO2 levels. The plantations were both stressed as a result of a vapour pressure deficit (VPD) and drought conditions. The idea was to measure the isoprene emissions under various conditions. The results show a correlation between photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) which makes sense as isoprene emissions shutdown with the absence of light. It was interesting that as the drought conditions continued, no matter the CO2 concentration, the isoprene levels tailored off to roughly the same emission rate.

As a side note, I am finally learning all that high school biology I didn't take.

Journal Club MTG6: Global Change and Ozone Air Quality

This week we delve back into organic chemistry with an article on ozone quality over the United States. Titled "Effects of 2000-2050 global change on ozone air quality in the United States" by Shiliang Wu et al (2008), the paper looks at various changes in climate and anthropogenic emissions of ozone precursors using the GEOS-Chem model. Looking into the sensitivity of ozone to climate events, one can see minimal changes in the southeast, but large increases in ozone as the cyclone tracks change and don't protrude inland as far as presently occurs. The anthropogenic emissions are looked at under the A1B scenario from IPCC and has a decrease in emissions in the US and as a result a significant decrease over southeast. The final consensus is that the emissions cap currently in place at 40% needs to be increased to 50% to take into account the effects of climate change by 2050.

An interesting question at this point is, given that decreases are going to have different effects in different regions, should we have one solution at a federal level(in the US) or a state level?

Journal Club MTG3: Ozone Interannual Variability

Today is yet again journal club day. We are reviewing a paper by S Koumoutsaris et al. "Influence of El-Nino-Southern Oscillation on the Interannual Variability of tropospheric ozone in the northern midlatitudes". It is a rather long and figure intensive article that documents CO and O3. The author used the Goddard Earth Observing System Chem (GEOS-Chem) model to explore the correlation between El-Nino and O3. The model accurately captures the sensitivities to biomass burning and the meteorology for CO but not completely for O3. The study is conducted at 4 x 5 degrees that disregards the regional features. It is important to note that the article explains the shortfalls in capturing all the O3 from stratospheric dynamics and intrusions.

Journal Club MTG1: Atmospheric Chemistry

I attended my first ever Journal Club today with my supervisor here and fellow officemates. The topic: Atmospheric oxidation capacity sustained by a tropical forest by Lelieveld et al. Interesting paper from Nature that explores a theory which opposes known science in atmospheric chemistry. The idea is that OH is recycled through some mechanism in a low NOx environment like a rainforest. The paper is not great, requires a lot of supplementary material but it has jumpstarted my organic chemistry understanding, last attempted in high school. It also started to fill in the gaps of knowledge I have about various plugins in global climate models. However unless you are an organic chemist or have one handy (my officemate Ahmed very kindly spent an hour patiently explaining things) don't bother.