Stratospheric dynamics journal club

The stratospheric dynamics journal club consists of a group of about 25 members ranging from first year PhD students to more senior researchers who meet online to discuss a paper. We try to meet every 3 weeks but there are periods when people are busy attending big conferences. The size of the group varies depending on the paper being discussed and the various interests of individuals but typically 6 to 10 members will be present. We meet on Thursdays at 3 pm GMT for 1.5 hours. Each participant is given a section of the paper to prepare and present. The expectation is that they will be able to explain what is being shown in the figures and to draw attention to any interesting discussion points but no one is expect to be an expert in the subject matter.

If you are interested in coming along, please email me.

List of past papers discussed

• 8 December 2022: A Robust Mechanism for Strengthening of the Brewer–Dobson Circulation in Response to Climate Change: Critical-Layer Control of Subtropical Wave Breaking. Shepherd and McLandress (2011) Journal of the Atmospheric Science doi:10.1175/2010JAS3608.1
• 3 November 2022: Catch up on SPARC GA posters.
• 13 October 2022: The Oscillatory Motion of Jupiter’s Polar Cyclones Results From Vorticity Dynamics. Gavriel and Kaspi (2022) Geophysical Research Letters doi:10.1029/2022GL098708
• 15 September 2022: Longer and oscillatory: Subseasonal Vacillations in the Winter Stratosphere. Hardiman et al. (2020) Geophysical Research Letters doi:10.1029/2020GL087766
• 18 August 2022: Scaling of Eliassen-Palm flux vectors. Jucker (2021) Atmospheric Science Letters doi:10.1002/asl.1020
• 7 July 2022: The stratosphere: dynamics and variability. Butchart (2022) Weather Climate Dynamics, doi:10.5194/wcd-3-1237-2022. We contributed a comment to the discussion article.
• 16 June 2022: Dynamical proxies of North Atlantic predictability and extremes. Faranda et al. (2017) Scientific reports doi:10.1038/srep41278
• 28 April 2022: Early-warning signals for critical transitions. Scheffer et al. (2009) Natur e doi:10.1038/nature08227
• 7 April 2022: Progressing emergent constraints on future climate change. Hall et al. (2019) Nature Climate Change doi:10.1038/s41558-019-0436-6
• 26 November 2021: Bringing physical reasoning into statistical practice in climate-change science. Shepherd (2021) Climatic Change doi:10.1007/s10584-021-03226-6
• 4 November: Northern hemisphere cold air outbreaks are more likely to be severe during weak polar vortex conditions. Huang et al. (2021) Communications Earth & Environment doi:10.1038/s43247-021-00215-6
• 21 October 2021 (In honour of the Nobel prize in Physics): Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity. Manabe and Wetherald (1967) Journal of the Atmospheric Science doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1967)024<0241:TEOTAW>2.0.CO;2
• 7 October 2021: On the role of Rossby wave breaking in the quasi-biennial modulation of the stratospheric polar vortex during boreal winter. Lu et al. (2020) Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society doi:10.1002/qj.3775>
• 23 September 2021 (2 papers): 1) The global atmospheric circulation on moist isentropes. Pauluis et al. (2008) Science doi:10.1126/science.1159649 2) The global atmospheric circulation in moist isentropic coordinates. Paulius et al. (2010) Journal of Climate doi:10.1175/2009JCLI2789.1
• 29 July, 12 August and 9 September 2021: Sudden Stratospheric Warmings. Baldwin et al. (2020) Reviews of Geophysics doi:10.1029/2020RG000708
• 8 July 2021: Beyond equilibrium climate sensitivity. Knutti et al. (2017) Nature Geoscience doi:10.1038/ngeo3017
• 10 June 2021: A Positive Zonal Wind Feedback on Sudden Stratospheric Warming Development Revealed by CESM2 (WACCM6) Reforecasts. Davis et al. (2020) Geophysical Research Letters doi:10.1029/2020GL090863
• 6 and 20 May 2021: The Influence of the Stratosphere on the Tropical Troposphere. Haynes et al. (2021) Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan. Ser. II doi:10.2151/jmsj.2021-040
• 15 April 2021: The stratospheric QBO affects antarctic sea ice through the tropical convection in early austral winter. Yamazakia and Nakamura (2021) Polar Science doi:10.1016/j.polar.2021.100674
• 26 March 2021: The 2019/20 Australian wildfires generated a persistent smoke-charged vortex rising up to 35 km altitude. Khaykin et al. (2020) Communications Earth and Environment doi:10.1038/s43247-020-00022-5
• 11 March 2021: Memory Matters: A Case for Granger Causality in Climate Variability Studies. McGraw and Barnes (2018) Journal of climate doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0334.1
• 25 February 2021: Tropical water vapour in the lower stratosphere and its relationship to tropical/extratropical dynamical processes in ERA5. Wang et al. (2020) Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society doi:10.1002/qj.3801
• 28 January and 11 February 2021: Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Convective Adjustment. Manabe and Strickler (1964) Journal of Atmospheric Sciences doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1964)021&\0361:TEOTAW\&>2.0.CO;2
• 14 January 2021: 3-D tomographic observations of Rossby wave breaking over the Northern Atlantic during the WISE aircraft campaign in 2017. Krasaukas et al. (2020) ACPD doi:10.5194/acp-2020-1053
• 17 December 2020: Spatiotemporal Variability of the Southern Annular Mode and its Influence on Antarctic Surface Temperatures Wachter et al. (2020) JGR:Atmospheres doi:10.1029/2020JD033818
• 12 November and 26 November 2020: Local Finite-Amplitude Wave Activity as a Diagnostic of Anomalous Weather Events. Huang and Nakamura (2016) Journal of Atmospheric Science doi:10.1175/JAS-D-15-0194.1
• 29 October 2020: On the Mean Meridional Mass Motions of the Stratosphere and Mesosphere. Dunkerton (1978) Journal of Atmospheric Sciences doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1978)035%3C2325:OTMMMM%3E2.0.CO;2
• 8 October 2020: Representation of the equatorial stratopause semiannual oscillation in global atmospheric reanalyses. Kawatani et al. (2020) ACP doi:10.5194/acp-20-9115-2020
• 24 September 2020: Forecasting extreme stratospheric polar vortex events. Gray et al. (2020) Nature Communications doi:10.1038/s41467-020-18299-7
• 10 September 2020: Balloon‐Borne Observations of Short Vertical Wavelength Gravity Waves and Interaction With QBO Winds. Vincent and Alexander (2020) JGR Atmospheres doi:10.1029/2020JD032779
• 27 August 2020: On the Intermittency of Gravity Wave Momentum Flux in the Stratosphere. Hertzog et al. (2012) Journal of Atmospheric Sciences doi:10.1175/JAS-D-12-09.1
• 23 July 2020: Responses of Tropical Deep Convection to the QBO: Cloud-Resolving Simulations. Nie and Sobel (2015) Journal of Atmospheric Sciences doi:10.1175/JAS-D-15-0035.1
• 25 June and 9 July 2020: On the “Downward Control” of Extratropical Diabatic Circulations by Eddy-Induced Mean Zonal Forces. Haynes et al. (1991) Journal of Atmospheric Sciences doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1991)048%3C0651:OTCOED%3E2.0.CO;2
• 11 June 2020: Role of the quasi-biennial oscillation in the downward extension of stratospheric northern annular mode anomalies. Zhang et al. (2020) Climate dynamics doi:10.1007/s00382-020-05285-4