International Workshop on Upper Tropospheric Humidity

June 12 – 15, 2007 in Karlsruhe, Germany

Workshop Program

SPARC Newsletter including a report about the workshop

Downloads and participants (access only for participants)

Background

The discovery of massive supersaturations with respect to ice in upper tropospheric cloud-free air and inside cirrus clouds calls into question our understanding of the physics of ice cloud formation. These findings represent potentially important modifications in our characterization of upper tropospheric and stratospheric water and energy budgets, with implications for cloud formation, for fluxes of water and radiation, and for atmospheric chemistry.

At the core of understanding processes in cirrus clouds is the requirement for accurate measurements of water vapour and total water concentrations under field and laboratory conditions. Currently applied and newly developed instruments with improved sensitivity and time resolution require elaborate calibration procedures. However, recent observations of unexpectedly high supersaturations using different kinds of instruments warrant close scrutiny of the various hypotheses put forward as explanations by laboratory experimentalists, cloud modellers and ice theoreticians.

Scope of the meeting

The discussion meeting will address the pitfalls in humidity and cloud field observations and the open questions in measurements of humidity under laboratory and field conditions as well as the various theoretical and modelling hypothesis. Furthermore, objective, work program and technical preparations for the Water Vapour and Humidity Instrument Intercomparison Campaign in October 2007 at the AIDA facility of Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe will also be discussed during the meeting.

Flyer

Organizers

Thomas Peter, ETH Zürich
Ottmar Möhler, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe
Martina Krämer, Forschungszentrum Jülich

Program committee members:
Thierry Corti( ETH), Volker Ebert (U Heidelberg), Thomas Koop (U Bielefeld), Claudia Marcolli (ETH), Harald Saathoff (FZK), Cornelius Schiller (FZJ), Peter Spichtinger (ETH)

Date and Location

June 12 – 15, 2007
Akademie-Hotel Karlsruhe

Flyer including travel information.

Program Topics

Theory
Modelling: Global and Process
Observations: Field and Laboratory
Instruments

Planning workshop for AIDA campaign in October 2007

On Friday afternoon a planning meeting will prepare the Water Vapour and Humidity Instrument Intercomparison Campaign in October 2007. If necessary a visit to the AIDA facility at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe can be organised.

Preliminary Agenda

Sponsors

We gratefully acknowledge financial support by:
	Stratospheric Processes and Role in Climate (SPARC) – A core project of the World Climate Research Programme
	The Word Climate Research Program (WCRP)
	EUROCHAMP – A European Union FP6 project
	SCOUT-O3 – A European Union FP6 project
	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science
	Forschungszentrum Jülich, Institute of Chemistry and Dynamics of the Geosphere (ICG-1)
	Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-AAF)

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