INSIDE THIS ISSUE

PARTNERSHIPS

ICAS ANNUAL SCIENCE MEETING

OUTREACH

VOLCANO PROVIDES

UNPRECEDENTED RESEARCH

OPPORTUNITY

NEW CENTRE FOR EXPERTISE ON

MODELLING OF THE ATMOSPHERE

AND CLIMATE

NEW DOCTORAL TRAINING

PARTNERSHIP STARTS

PAPERS & PROJECT NEWS

2014 saw the publication of the

Fifth Assessment Report of the

Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change, with Piers

Forster heavily involved in both

the writing and approval of the

Working Group 1 report on

Physical Climate Change and the

ICAS Newsletter Issue 3 February 2015

Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science SCHOOL OF EARTH AND ENVIRONMENT

www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/icas/ Twitter@ICASLeeds

Synthesis Report. The

highlight was the 11th hour

approval of Figure 1 from the

Summary for Policy Makers of

the Synthesis report after 4

days (and nights) of tough

negotiations in Copenhagen

(pictured).

PIERS FORSTER ON IPCC

To subscribe: http://lists.leeds.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/icas-newsletter

AWARDS AND RECOGNTION

Cat Scott awarded Springer Thesis Prize 2014

The prize recognises outstanding

PhD theses, chosen for their

scientific excellence and the

impact that the author, as one of

today’s younger generation of

scientists, has on their chosen

research area.

As a result of the award, Cat’s

research is now available to millions

of readers worldwide. Cat’s PhD, on

the biogeochemical impacts of

forests and their implications for

climate change, demonstrates that

forests have a greater impact on

climate than previously thought, due

to the organic molecules which they

produce. Cat used a state-of-the-art

global aerosol microphysics model to

make the first detailed assessment of

the impact of these molecules on

aerosols and Earth’s climate. Her

thesis also discusses what this

means in terms of the impacts that

forests have on climate, finding that

including the climate impacts of

SOAs alongside the carbon cycle

and other influences increases the

total warming effect of global

deforestation by roughly 20%. This is

the second Springer prize won by

ICAS, following Anja Schmidt in 2012

for her PhD on volcanic impacts on

the atmosphere.

UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH PROJECT WINS POSTERS IN PARLIAMENT AWARD

Lucinda McGregor, a BSc Meteorology & Climate Science student, presented her research poster in the Houses of Parliament alongside 44 other undergraduate submissions. Lucinda is doing her undergraduate final-year project with Prof Ken Carslaw and PhD student Leighton Regayre.

This vibrant event showcases some

of the best undergraduate research

from selected universities across the

country, with students presenting

research posters to invited guests,

including many MPs, as well as

undergoing a rigorous round of

questions from a judging panel

including Sir Anthony Cleaver (chair

of National Environment Research

Council).

Lucinda’s poster was entitled “The

reliability of cloud representation in

climate models” and compared cloud

cover within climate models to

satellite observations to determine

the accuracy of modelled cloud

representation.

The Posters in Parliament event is

organised as part of the British

Conference of Undergraduate

Research (BCUR) and awards prizes

to the two best posters. This year,

however, the judges awarded a third

prize to Lucinda.

The students spent a lot of time

talking to Greg Mulholland MP, who

visited the exhibition with the whole

event finishing with an evening

reception at Westminster Central

Hall, where Lucinda received her

award.

Lucinda said: "It was a very

enjoyable day, getting to meet

students from universities across the

country, who are all passionate about

what they study and have an active

interest in research. The exhibitions

were very inspirational and getting to

watch a bit of debating in the House

of Commons was great, but the

highlight has got to be meeting Sir

Anthony Cleaver!"

liquid water clouds over a large area

in the North Atlantic thereby affecting

regional climate. The authors

conclude that an unprecedented

opportunity to study aerosol- cloud

interactions could arise if the eruption

were to continue into the boreal

summer.

See photo on last page.

In January 2015 the team went on a

challenging winter expedition to the

eruption site to sample the volcanic

plume (see photos). Anja’s work

shows that air quality was

significantly degraded more than

1500 km away from the volcano in

Ireland and the UK on two occasions

during September 2014.

Published in Nature Geoscience, the

team from NCAR, Leeds and Oslo

Universities demonstrated that the

sulfur emitted at Nornahraun could

result in much brighter low-level

In the early hours of 31 August 2014, the spectacular Nornahraun fissure eruption began at the Holuhraun lava field in Iceland about 45 km away from Bárðarbunga central volcano. The eruption presented an unprecedented opportunity for Anja Schmidt to study the environmental effects of a large-scale Icelandic flood lava eruption.

During early September 2014, the

powerful lava-producing eruption was

characterized by 100-m-high fire

fountains along a 1.5-km-long

fissure.

The average lava discharge rate

during September 2014 is estimated

at 200 m3/s, which is equivalent to

filling five Olympic-sized swimming

pools with lava each minute. The

eruption produced very little volcanic

ash, and by mid-September 2014,

activity gradually became limited to

four craters forming a 400-m-long

lava pond (see photo). By February

2015, the eruption produced a total

lava volume of more than 1.4 km3

making it the first flood lava since the

Laki eruption in 1783.

For more than 150 days the

Nornahraun eruption has emitted on

average 35 kilotons of sulfur dioxide

(SO2) per day into the atmosphere;

almost three times the total daily

anthropogenic SO2 emissions from

the European Union in 2010.

In ICAS, Anja Schmidt is

investigating the long-range transport

of sulfur from Nornahraun and its

effects on air quality and climate

together with colleagues across the

UK, at the UK Met Office, at NCAR

and in Iceland.

Anja is also the Leeds PI on a NERC

urgency grant led by the British

Geological Survey (Evgenia

Ilyinskaya) characterising the source

of the sulfur emitted at Nornahraun.

ICELANDIC VOLCANO PROVIDES UNPRECEDENTED RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY

Setting up filter packs and pumps to sample gases and aerosol particles in the Nornahraun volcanic plume. Photo by Anja Schmidt taken on 22 January 2015.

AWARDS AND RECOGNTION

Jo Browse - IASC Fellow for the

Atmosphere Working Group

The International Arctic Science

Committee (IASC) is a non-

governmental, international

scientific organization that

encourages and facilitates

cooperation in all aspects of Arctic

research. The IASC Fellowship

Program is a mechanism to

engage early career scientists in

the work of the IASC Working

Groups (WGs). IASC Fellows are

expected to scientifically contribute

and to help organize specific

activities. Fellows are involved in

leading-edge scientific activities at

a circumarctic and international

level, to build an international

network of contacts and also to

develop management skills. IASC

supports one Fellow per WG for a

period of one year.

composition, weather, climate,

climate impacts and palaeoclimate,

and there are plans to extend into ice

sheet modelling. ICAS is also a

leading UK centre for the use of the

Met Office Unified Model in almost all

its configurations, ranging from

scales of hundreds of metres to the

global scale.

CEMAC also has ambitious plans to

transform how ICAS’s research feeds

into teaching. We aim to enhance the

student experience by providing

expertise to enable students to do

research with our models and to

benefit from new techniques to

visualise and explore model and

observation data.

For further information about

computer modelling in ICAS visit

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/

ICAS/facilities/computer-modelling.

The School of Earth and Environment has given the go-ahead for a major new initiative to support the extensive numerical modelling research in ICAS. Up to seven new posts will be created with the aim of transforming ICAS’s capability to develop and apply complex climate and atmosphere models, and to manage the increasingly large model and observation datasets associated with them.

CEMAC is a joint initiative with the

National Centre for Atmospheric

Science (NCAS) and will be closely

linked to the Met Office through the

formal Academic Partnership.

Computer modelling is a major

scientific activity in ICAS and is also

central to how we exploit our field

and laboratory research. The

research of 18 academic staff is

primarily model-based. In the period

2008-2013 model-based research

attracted £25 million grant income,

enabling more than 340 publications.

ICAS’s continued growth (from 4

academic staff in 1999 to 30 today)

has led to a rapid increase in the

range and complexity of models used

by staff, postdocs and PhD students.

Our major models cover atmospheric

ICAS TO CREATE A WORLD-LEADING CENTRE FOR EXPERTISE ON MODELLING OF THE ATMOSPHERE AND CLIMATE

DOCTORAL TRAINING PARTNERSHIP APPOINTS FIRST PHD STUDENTS

NINETY PERCENT

OF OUR

RESEARCH

JUDGED WORLD

LEADING OR

INTERNATIONALLY

EXCELLENT

The results of the national Research

Excellence Framework exercise

have now been published and we

are delighted to announce that the

School of Earth and Environment

has been ranked 5th out of 44

departments in the UK for overall

research quality in Earth systems

and environmental sciences. The

Research Excellence Framework is

a national assessment of the quality

of research in UK Higher Education

Institutions, undertaken every six

years.

This result represents a major

improvement compared to our

position of 12th in the 2008

Research Assessment Exercise, and

demonstrates our status as a world-

leader in research across a broad

spectrum of the Earth and

environmental sciences. 90% of our

research has reached world leading

and internationally excellent

standards based on overall quality.

The quality of our research

environment has also been rated

within the top 2 in the UK, reflecting

our culture of supporting both new

and experienced researchers as well

as major investments in

infrastructure and facilities, including

£23.5M on a state-of-the-art building

for Earth and environmental

research.

Staff within ICAS are leading a NERC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) called SPHERES – Site for PhD Training in Environmental Research. The Leeds DTP recruited its first students in October 2014.

In 2012 NERC reorganised its award

of PhD studentships to improve the

training and research environment for

all students, and the result was the

creation of fifteen DTPs across the

UK.

The SPHERES DTP is a

collaboration between the five

departments in Leeds with NERC-

facing research (Schools of Earth and

Environment, Geography, Chemistry,

Biology and Maths) and the

atmospheric scientists in the nearby

Department of Chemistry at York. In

contrast to many others, our DTP is

largely a ‘single-site’ one and

students can easily come together for

training and research events. Our

PhD projects span the full range of

NERC research excellence that

occurs in these departments.

Naturally, there is a strong

representation of atmospheric

science not only in ICAS but also in

Leeds Chemistry, Geography and

Maths and York Chemistry.

Our NERC funding is boosted by co-

funding from the universities and

departments. We provide up to 28

fully funded PhD places per year.

Importantly, because of this co-

funding, we are able to offer several

fully funded studentships to EU

students. SEE, as the largest NERC-

facing department, is the largest

recruiter within the DTP and within

that a significant number of students

are based in ICAS. Many external

partner organisations, such as the

Met Office provide additional ‘CASE’

support for our DTP students.

The director of the DTP is ICAS’s

Martyn Chipperfield. In September

2014 Nigel Richards, who has

worked for ICAS and NERC NCEO

on satellite observations of

atmospheric chemistry, was

appointed the DTP’s dedicated

trainer and administrator. For further

information please contact them or

consult our http://

www.nercdtp.leeds.ac.uk/

ICAS PARTNERSHIPS

THE MET OFFICE ACADEMIC PARTNERSHIP

The Partnership continues to be

an active part of the life of ICAS,

influencing a large fraction of our

research activities, and enhancing

teaching.

Our new partnership research

fellow, Steven Boeing, started in

Leeds on 1 February 2015, to work

on the dynamics of deep convection.

Claire Witham (Met Office

Atmospheric Dispersion Group

leader) spent a week in ICAS on a

partnership secondment, hosted by

Anja Schmidt. The ongoing

collaboration is aimed at advancing

our joint research on volcanic plume

dispersal.

Climate Services: There was a

cross Research Advisory Panel

meeting on climate services with the

Met Office and Leeds in Oxford at the

end of September 2014. Possible

coordination of work on climate

services and risks across the Met

Office Academic Partnership was

discussed, including future work on

weather-related hazards and analysis

of adaptation decision-making.

Alan Haywood and Julia Tindall

have received £75,000 as part of the

CSSP scheme to continue the

inclusion of stable water isotopes

within the UK Earth System Model

(UKESM1).

Juliane Schwendike, John

Marsham and Dan Grosvenor will

work with a PDRA from January until

March on a China CSSP

collaboration analysing model

NEW PARTNERSHIP WITH THE KARLSRUHE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

A Memorandum of Understanding

has been signed between

Karlsruhe institute of Technology

(KIT, Germany) to formalise a

partnership that will foster and

facilitate collaboration.

The collaboration will build on current

and past successes:

- Joint projects, particularly those

funded by the European Union or

other international funding bodies;

- Joint international field or laboratory

experiments;

- Joint model development or model

intercomparison exercises;

- Exchange of students (particularly

PhD, but also BSc/MSc) and

researchers at all career stages.

The formal partnership builds on a

history of successful projects (e.g.

CSIP, AMMA, COPS) and ongoing

projects (e.g. DACCIWA, BACCHUS,

Desert Storms, StratoClim) across an

extraordinarily broad range of

science areas including atmospheric

chemistry, aerosols, cloud physics,

climate, planetary boundary layer

processes, dynamics, convection,

land-surface processes and

biosphere-atmosphere interactions.

John Marsham (ICAS) and Peter

Knippertz and Christian Barthlott

(KIT) are the designated contacts for

each institution. If you have questions

regarding the partnership, e.g. about

the possibility of visiting KIT, contact

them in the

first instance

(discussing

with your

supervisor as

appropriate).

convection over China.

Sebastien Nobert and Suraje

Dessai (in SRI) won support for

research in China into Mapping

Climate Services and Needs.

New CASE and Met Office staff

studentships, October 2014

CASE students undertake their PhDs

in cooperation with non-academic

institutions. Three new students have

begun Met Office CASE PhDs in

ICAS. Oliver Halliday (Storms,

water and atmospheric dynamics

supervised by Prof Doug Parker, Dr

Stephen Griffiths in Maths and Dr

Simon Vosper; Hannah Pearce

(Nitrate aerosol: implications for

European climate and air quality

supervised by Dr Graham Mann, Dr

Steve Arnold and Dr Fiona

O’Connor; and Matt Clark (Fine-

scale observations and modelling of

convective systems in the UK

supervised by Prof Doug Parker and

Prof Chris Collier)

CENTRE FOR POLAR OBSERVATION AND MODELLING

The Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) is a collaborative research centre studying processes occurring at polar latitudes that affect Earth's albedo, ocean and atmosphere circulation, and sea level. CPOM develops satellite observations of land and marine ice fluxes and of polar ocean circulation, and combines these measurements with theoretical understanding to improve models of how Earth’s ice, oceans and atmosphere interact. NERC has supported CPOM since 2000 to provide UK national capability in the field of cryospheric Earth observation and modelling.

CPOM is led from ICAS by Andy

Shepherd and Mal McMillan is the

CPOM research scientist, and

includes partners at University

College London with expertise in

satellite altimetry, at the University of

Bristol with expertise in ice sheet

modelling, and at the University of

Reading with expertise in sea ice

modelling. Around one third of

CPOM’s £1.5 million annual budget

is provided by NERC to maintain its

national capability role, and the

remainder comes from other sources

including the European Space

Agency (ESA) and the European

Commission.

Together with the British Antarctic

Survey (BAS) and the National

Oceanographic Centre (NOC),

CPOM addresses the scientific

challenges of Arctic climate change

and global sea level rise – issues of

broad societal concern. This includes

providing data sets that are used to

test global climate model predictions,

in partnership with the UK Met Office,

and to inform assessments of global

climate change, in support of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change, and developing and

maintaining state of the art numerical

models of land and sea ice. CPOM

also works closely with space

agencies to exploit satellite datasets

and mission opportunities, and

provides scientific and technical

leadership for the European Space

Agency’s CryoSat-2 mission.

CryoSat-2 is the European Space

Agency’s first satellite mission

dedicated to surveying polar regions.

An important element of CPOM’s role

is to provide scientific and technical

support for CryoSat-2, and Andy

Shepherd is the Principal Scientific

Advisor to the mission.

Over the years, CPOM has made

important technical and scientific

advances. Highlights include

producing the first space borne

observations of sea ice thickness and

volume, the first assessments of

Antarctic ice sheet thickness and

volume change, the discovery of

widespread ice dynamical imbalance

in the Amundsen Sea sector of West

Antarctica, and the discovery of rapid

water transfer between lakes situated

ICAS PARTNERSHIPS

at the base of the Antarctic ice

sheet. CPOM has also been

instrumental in the development of

the GLIMMER, BISICLES, and CICE

community ice sheet and sea ice

models that form the basis of future

climate projections, and in

establishing the Ice Sheet Mass

Balance Inter-comparison Exercise

which, in 2012, delivered the first

community assessment of the sea

level contribution due to ice losses

from Greenland and Antarctica.

Image: The image shows the rate of ice cap elevation change between 2010 and 2014 observed by the CryoSat satel-lite, which is overlaid onto an image acquired by the Sentinel-1A satellite. Red regions show where the ice surface has low-ered due to ice loss. Image credit: CPOM/GRL

NATIONAL CENTRE FOR ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE

Staff in the National Centre for

Atmospheric Science (NCAS) are

an integral part of ICAS’s

research.

Barbara Brooks, Head of the NCAS

Atmospheric Measuring Facility

(AMF), was involved in the 2014

Arctic Cloud Summer Experiment

(ACSE) project cruise. She was

responsible for deploying and

running several AMF instruments

including a scanning microwave

radiometer and a Doppler lidar - see

photo.

Kate Faloon, Barbara Brooks,

James Groves and Dan Walker

have developed a field site in

collaboration with the Icelandic

Meteorological Office with several

cameras, a weather station, lidar and

lidar ceilometer. The IMO mobile X-

band radar is at the same site. Data

are streamed live to the AMF

website. Please see: https://

www.ncas.ac.uk/index.php/en/about-

iao. NCAS also organised an Ash

workshop that brings together the

operational and academic community

to address the problem of real time

retrievals applicable to the accurate

forecasting of ash, its position and

possible size concentration.

Construction of the "Summit

Polarized Raman Lidar” (SuPR lidar)

has now begun in earnest supervised

by the new joint NCAS-ICAS scientist

Ryan Neely and deployment in

Greenland has been scheduled for

2016. Refurbishment of the "Cloud,

Aerosol Polarization and Backscatter

Lidar" (CAPABL) has also started

and the new data acquisition system

has shown the ability to detect

horizontally oriented ice crystals.

Deployment to Summit Greenland is

scheduled for April 2015.

The NCAS radar has been deployed

to Braunschweig airport, Germany as

part of the Single European Sky Air

Traffic Management Research

(SESAR) project to automate air

traffic control. The idea is to provide

suitable meteorological products

from all kinds of sensors present at

the airport, such as wind shear and

surface temperature. The NCAS

radar scientist Lindsay Bennett is

supervising the UK part of the project

and Ralph Burton is running the

WRF model for the experimental

domain.

Analysis of results from the WISER

project (Weather climate change

Impact Study at Extreme Resolution)

has been started by Alan Gadian to

examine the extremes in the tail of

the precipitation pdf and is providing

input to the European Flood Model.

The project will involve collaboration

with the US National Centre for

Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

The development of the GLOMAP

aerosol model in the UK’s Unified

Model (UM), led by Graham Mann

and Ken Carslaw, has reached

some important milestones towards

the creation of the new UK Earth

System Model (UKESM). Interactive

stratospheric aerosol has been

developed, leading to some

important new findings about the

effects of the Pinatubo eruption in

1991, published by Dhomse et al.

(2014). GLOMAP has also been

accepted into the latest Global

Atmosphere configuration (GA7) of

the UM, following intensive

collaboration between Met Office,

Leeds, Cambridge, Oxford and

Reading.

A significant piece of work has been

undertaken to examine the causes of

the Boltby dam flooding event in the

summer of 2005 by Ralph Burton,

Alan Gadian and Chris Collier.

This is an important application of

understanding the physical

processes in convective precipitation.

Dam over-topping is considered to

be a potential hazard that is of

interest to the Natural Hazards

Partnership. The results may feed

into hazard risk models.

ICAS PARTNERSHIPS

NCAS scientists at Leeds on field deployment on

the ACSE cruise. Photo: Barbara Brooks

NATIONAL CENTRE FOR EARTH OBSERVATION

ICAS researchers are part of the

National Centre for Earth

Observation (NCEO), a distributed

NERC centre. NCEO was formed

in 2008 to promote the use of

Earth observation data among

NERC researchers. NERC has

invested £23M in NCEO over the

next 5 years. Martyn Chipperfield

is an NCEO Principal Investigator.

In the first phase of NCEO, before it

was separated into atmosphere,

cryosphere (now CPOM) and solid

Earth, two ICAS staff were NCEO

Principal Investigators: Martyn

Chipperfield for Atmospheric

Composition and Andy Shepherd for

the Cryosphere. During this time the

NCEO research fellows Dr Nigel

Richards and Dr Mal Macmillan

conducted research into tropospheric

chemistry and the ice sheets,

respectively.

Many past and present PhD students

also had had projects funded by, or

linked to, NCEO activities, including

Amber Leeson (ice sheet modelling),

Richard Pope (air quality) and Joey

McNorton (land-atmosphere CH4

fluxes).

ICAS atmospheric composition

research in NCEO focusses on two

activities: (i) Inverse modelling and

data assimilation and (ii) using EO

data to test atmospheric models.

The new NCEO Research Fellow,

Chris Wilson, has developed the

inverse version of our TOMCAT 3-D

chemical transport model (CTM).

This allows the model to be run

backwards in time so that we can

use atmospheric observations to

derive the emissions of important

greenhouse gases such as CH4 and

CO2 (see Figure 1).

We are now entering an era of

unprecedented coverage of carbon

gases from space with the launch of

satellites such as GOSAT and OCO-

2. Inverse modelling will play a key

role in determining the surface

sources and sinks of these species.

From April 2015 an additional ICAS

NCEO post will work on the testing

the atmospheric chemistry in the new

UK Earth System Model (UKESM1).

ICAS ANNUAL SCIENCE MEETING 2014

Our annual science meeting in

November 2014 at the Queens Hotel

in Leeds was a huge success. About

90 members of staff, postdocs and

PhD students took part, with the day

organised around the three ICAS

research themes: Composition,

Climate and Weather. Our invited

guests this year, to launch our new

Partnership, were Christoph

Kottmeier and Bernhard Vogel from

the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

There were 115 posters presented

and the buzz around the poster

sessions was, to quote one member

of staff’s tweet, like AGU. We

finished the day with dinner and prize

giving, with the highly deserving

winners being:

Award for most significant

scientific advance or discovery by

a PhD student: Winner: Tom

Richardson (2nd year PhD) for

“Understanding the rapid

precipitation response to CO2 and

aerosol forcing on a regional scale”.

Award for most significant

scientific advance or discovery by

an early career researcher: Winner:

Amber Leeson for “Greenland’s

supraglacial lakes advance inland

under warming climate”. Runner up:

Lindsay Lee for “How can CCN

observations contribute to model

uncertainty reduction?”

Award for outstanding research by

a PhD student supported by the

Met Office: Winner: Leighton

Regayre for “Mission: Uncertainty

Quantification. Target: Aerosol

Radiative Forcing”. Runner up:

Steven Turnock for “Changes in

European Aerosols from

Observations and a Global Chemistry

Climate Model”

Award for outstanding scientific

communication: Winner: Tom

Richardson (2nd year PhD). Runner

up: His supervisor… Piers Forster

ICAS PARTNERSHIPS

Image: Surface flux of CH4 (x1012 molecules cm-2 s-1) into the atmosphere from South America in August 2010 before (left) and after (centre) the TOMCAT model has been used to assimilate in-situ and satellite observations of atmospheric CH4 concentrations.

Image 3: BBC Operation Cloud

Lab – Photo Credit: BBC Pictures

ICAS Making a Buzz in the Media

ICAS is a world-leading atmospheric

research institute and the global me-

dia coverage of our research reflects

this. Jim McQuaid’s was a presenter

and science advisor on the BBC’s

Operation Cloud Lab (Image 3) and

Wild Weather with Richard Ham-

mond. Steve Arnold was a guest on

the red sofa for a Look North inter-

view about air pollution and Doug

Parker was interviewed by Sky News

regarding the poor weather and

flooding experienced at the start of

2014. Paul Hudson has hosted a

number of ICAS researchers as part

of his BBC Radio York Weather

Show. In 2014, Jim McQuaid, Anja

Schmidt and Cat Scott have all visit-

ed the station to chat about a variety

of topics such as volcanic eruptions

and air quality.

To read more visit http://

mediacuttings.leeds.ac.uk/

IntheNews/index.aspx and select

ICAS from the drop-down menu.

KS3 and KS4 students.

CAST: Flying around Storms in

the Tropics -Royal Society

Summer Science Exhibition – June

2014 (Image 2)

Hannah joined the Coordinated

Airborne Studies in the Tropics

(CAST) team at the Royal Society’s

Summer Science Exhibition to talk to

the public and Royal Society Fellows

about the recent field campaign in

Guam.

Science Fair - Saltaire Festival –

September 2014

Lindsay Bennett showed that all the

best meteorology experiments go

“Bang!” with the loudest stall at the

Science Fair, organised by Kirsty

Pringle and Tay-Yibah Aziz (STEM

Public Engagement Intern). Jim

McQuaid talked about how clouds

form and showcased his work with

the BBC’s Operation Cloud Lab.

Hannah Price used her turbo power

experiment to demonstrate how

water power can be used to generate

electricity.

OUTREACH

ICAS has always been actively

involved in scientific outreach by

participating in the Leeds Festival

of Science, contributing to

external events and hosting

standalone activities. By

interacting with the public and

students, we aim to spark interest

in atmospheric science and

inspire students to pursue a STEM

career. Here are some recent

highlights. For more information,

look out for the new Outreach

page on the ICAS website.

Outreach Activities in 2014

Campus and Roadshow

Activities – University of Leeds

Festival of Science - April 2014

(Image 1)

Lindsay Bennett (NCAS and ICAS),

Victoria Smith (NCAS and ICAS) and

Matt Amison ran an interactive

“Weather Workshop” for high school

students. Hannah Price developed a

session titled “Super Cool Clouds”

looking at supercooled water and ice

nucleation and Hannah Mantle

created a roadshow session, “The

Business of Climate Change”, for

Image 1: Matt Amison, Tor Smith, Lindsay Bennett and high school stu-

dents – Weather Workshop. Photo credit: Lindsay Bennett (NCAS/SEE).

OUTREACH

Image 2: CAST Royal Society

Summer Science Festival 2014.

Photo Credit: Doug Anderson

(FAAM)

Upcoming Events:

World Meteorological Day – We Need You!

World Meteorological Day –

23rd/24th/25th March 2015

To celebrate World Meteorological

Day, Hannah Mantle and Jim

McQuaid are hosting a three day

event in the department titled

‘Weather and Water: Demisting the

Science of our Atmosphere’. KS3

students will be invited to participate

in demonstrations investigating the

many processes involved in the crea-

tion of our weather and attend a talk

given by Jim on his Cloud Lab work.

We need volunteers to help support

the event so if you’d like to be in-

volved, please email Hannah

(H.E.Mantle11@leeds.ac.uk).

Did You Know?

ICAS has two Education Outreach

Fellows in the department: Hannah

Mantle and Hannah Price. Cecilia

Ixchel de Ita and Simon Manda (both

SRI) have recently joined the team as

new Earth and Environment Educa-

tion Outreach Fellows. Pre Carbo is

our Schools Engagement Officer.

Get Involved!

If you’d like to be involved in ICAS

outreach please email Pre Carbo

(P.Carbo@leeds.ac.uk) for more in-

formation

.

AWARDS AND RECOGNTION

Cathryn Birch awarded GEWEX

outstanding presentation by an

early career scientist at the 7th

International Scientific

Conference on the Global Water

and Energy Cycle.

Cathryn is a Met Office Research

Scientist based in ICAS. Her work

uses a novel high-resolution

modelling approach to better

understand monsoon circulations.

Cathryn has also won the European

Meteorological Society (EMS) Young

Scientist Award for 2014. The award

is given to individuals in recognition

of excellent performance in terms of

scientific publications or

presentations during the early stage

of their scientific career. She earned

the award for scientific work that

brings together models and

observations to quantify the

processes leading to major biases in

weather and climate models.

Cathryn collected her award and

presented an invited talk at the EMS

conference in Prague in October.

Erin Dawkins awarded the IAGA

Young Scientist Award.

PhD student Erin Dawkins has won

the International Association of

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy

(IAGA) Young Scientist Award for

2015. Erin was nominated for her

research on upper atmosphere

metal layers. The award recognizes

excellent and promising young

scientists whose research,

presentation and overall

performance at the topical meeting

meet high international standards

and represent big potential for the

future of IAGA .

Stratospheric ozone depletion has

been one of the major

environmental issues of the past

few decades. A thinner ozone

layer allows more damaging

ultraviolet radiation to reach the

Earth’s surface and also changes

the atmospheric radiation balance.

In particular, ozone depletion in

the lower stratosphere can exert

an important climate forcing. Two

recent papers from ICAS, in

Nature and Nature Geoscience,

have shed new light on the causes

and impact of stratospheric ozone

loss.

Since the 1960s or so, the ozone

layer has been depleted through

human use of chlorine and bromine-

containing compounds such as

chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The

most dramatic manifestation of this

depletion is the Antarctic Ozone Hole

which started to appear in the early

1980s. CFCs, and similar gases, are

stable species with long atmospheric

lifetimes (many decades) and, as a

result, can be transported to the

stratosphere where they release Cl

and Br atoms which can destroy O3.

Fortunately, most of the Cl released

in this way is normally tied up in the

reservoir species HCl, which

therefore acts as a marker of the

stratospheric chlorine loading.

Concern over ozone depletion led to

the signing of the Montreal Protocol

in 1987. Following various

amendments, this protocol has led to

the phasing out of many classes of

known, long-lived ozone-destroying

compounds. Therefore, the chlorine

(and bromine) content of the

atmosphere is decreasing, but at a

slow rate. Models indicate that

atmospheric chlorine loading should

return to 1980 (i.e. pre Ozone Hole)

values by about 2050.

However, recent ground-based

Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR)

observations of stratospheric HCl in

the northern hemisphere have

revealed that the expected decrease

reversed around 2007 (Figure 1).

HCl has since shown an upward

trend for a number of years. This

turnaround was confirmed by satellite

observations from the Atmospheric

Chemistry Explorer (ACE). These

observations could potentially mean

that new, unknown sources of

chlorine are reaching the

stratosphere and that the Montreal

Protocol is failing in its aim to protect

the ozone layer.

Within ICAS we collaborated with the

observation groups worldwide in

order to understand these

unexpected variations in HCl and the

work has recently been published in

Nature (Mahieu et al., 2014). Using

the TOMCAT/SLIMCAT off-line 3-D

chemical transport model, we were

able to explain this as a transient

increase in column HCl due to

variability in stratospheric circulation.

After 2007 a slightly slower

circulation has allowed more of the

CFC source gas to be converted to

HCl, even though the chlorine

content of air in the stratosphere is

still decreasing. This long-term,

organised variability in the

stratospheric circulation is in itself

interesting, but the most important

conclusion, which made it of interest

to Nature’s general readership, is

that the Montreal Protocol is still

leading to a decrease in chlorine and

is thus still on course to protect the

ozone layer. Being able to interpret

the observations with a model like

TOMCAT was key to the conclusions

of the paper.

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Stratospheric Halogens and the Montreal Protocol

Ryan Hossaini and Martyn Chipperfield (Nature Geoscience, 2015)

Figure 1. Evolution of hydrogen chloride (HCl) in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Panel (a) shows the long-term total column time series of HCl at Jungfraujoch

station (running average; in red, left scale) and the global total tropospheric

chlorine mixing ratio (blue curve, right scale). Lower panels display the running

average total column time series (1997-2011) of HCl at Ny-Ålesund (b), Jung-

fraujoch (c) and Lauder stations (d), derived from the FTIR observations, the

standard (green) and S2000 (with repeating meteorology, yellow) SLIMCAT

model simulations. The thin red lines correspond to the ±2 standard error of

the mean range. Minimum columns are observed in July-2007 at the northern

hemisphere sites (dashed lines). From Mahieu et al. (2014).

Some related work on shorter-lived

halogenated species is currently in

press in Nature Geosciences

(Hossaini et al., 2015). This paper

studied the impact of so-called very

short-lived substances (VSLS) on

ozone and climate. These

compounds contain bromine, chlorine

and iodine and have atmospheric

lifetimes of 6 months or less. As a

consequence not all VSLS will reach

the stratosphere, but the ones that do

decompose readily and destroy

ozone in the lowermost part, where

ozone perturbations have a

particularly large climate impact

(Figure 2a). In the Nature

Geoscience paper we showed that

the climate impact due to ozone loss

from VSLS is about 4 times greater

than that from the longer lived

halocarbons, such as CFCs.

Many VSLS are emitted naturally, for

example bromoform and

dibromomethane from the ocean.

However, our paper also reports a

large increase in the atmospheric

abundance of dichloromethane,

which has mainly anthropogenic

sources (Figure 2b). This gas is not

controlled by the Montreal Protocol

and its growth appears to be

accelerating. Although it is present in

relatively small amounts at the

moment, these industrial sources are

not understood and will likely

increase further if growth is due to

the industrialization of developing

nations. This species and other VSLS

need to be carefully monitored in

coming years and there is likely to be

moves to include some VSLS in

future amendments to the Montreal

Protocol.

References (ICAS staff in bold)

R. Hossaini, M. P. Chipperfield, S.

A. Montzka, A. Rap, S. Dhomse and

W. Feng, Efficiency of short-lived

halogens at influencing climate

through depletion of stratospheric

ozone, Nature Geoscience,

doi:10.1038/ngeo2363 (2015)

Mahieu, E., M.P. Chipperfield, J.

Notholt, T. Reddmann, J. Anderson,

P.F. Bernath, T. Blumenstock, M.T.

Coffey, S. Dhomse, W. Feng, B.

Franco, L. Froidevaux, D.W.T.

Griffith, J. Hannigan, F. Hase, R.

Hossaini, et al., Recent northern

hemisphere hydrogen chloride

increase due to atmospheric

circulation change, Nature, 515, 104-

107, doi:10.1038/nature13857, 2014.

Figure 2. Ozone loss due to VSLS

and growth in atmospheric CH2Cl2.

Panel (a) shows the simulated global

average decrease in ozone volume

mixing ratio (parts per billion, ppb)

due to all halogenated VSLS in 2011.

The grated area denotes the range

due to uncertainty in the stratospher-

ic abundance of VSLS. For compari-

son, the ozone decrease due to all

halogenated long-lived ozone-

depleting substances (e.g. CFCs) is

also shown. VSLS are efficient at

destroying ozone in the climate-

sensitive lower stratosphere. Panel

(b) shows the observed monthly

mean trend in CH2Cl2 mixing ratio

(ppt) from a global ground-based

monitoring network. The 2000-2012

mean growth rates (%/yr, annotated)

reveal rapid CH2Cl2 growth over the

last decade, particularly in the indus-

trialised northern hemisphere. From

Hossaini et al. (2015).

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Other notable publications

PhD study selected as one of the

highlights of the UK SOLAS sci-

ence programme. This is the first

study to have mapped the global

distribution of whitecaps, which are

important for the production of sea

spray aerosol (Salisbury, D. J., M.

Anguelova, and I. M. Brooks: Global

Distribution and Seasonal Changes

in Satellite-based Whitecap Fraction

Estimates, Geophys. Res. Letts., 41,

2014)

The slowdown in global tempera-

ture trends: No systematic error in

climate models. Marotzke, J., and

P.M. Forster, Forcing, feedback, and

internal variability in global tempera-

ture trends. Nature, 2015.

Migrating ‘supraglacial’ lakes

could trigger future Greenland ice

loss. Leeson, A.A., A. Shepherd, K.

Briggs, I. Howat, X. Fettweis, M.

Morlighem, E. Rignot, Supraglacial

lakes on the Greenland ice sheet

advance inland under warming cli-

mate. Nature Climate Change, 5, 51

–55, 2015.

Where to find pristine aerosol en-

vironments on our polluted planet.

It is essential to understand pristine

environments because they signifi-

cantly affect how much radiative

forcing we calculate relative to pre-

industrial conditions (Hamilton, D.S.,

Lee, L.A., Pringle, K.J., Reddington,

C.L., Spracklen, D.V. Carslaw, K.S.

Occurrence of pristine aerosol envi-

ronments on a polluted planet, Pro-

ceedings of the National Academy of

Sciences, 111, 18466-18471 (2014).

ERC Consolidator success for Ben Murray

The highly competitive European

Research Council Consolidator 5-

year Grants aim to strengthen

independent and excellent research

teams across Europe. Ben Murray

has had outstanding success in the

ERC, having already completed an

ERC Starting Grant. His new €2M

grant will enable significant new

innovations in the field of ice

nucleation and atmospheric effects.

The formation of ice in clouds is

fundamentally important to life on our

planet since clouds play a key role in

climate and the hydrological cycle.

Despite the significance of ice

formation, our quantitative

understanding of sources, properties,

mode of action and transport of Ice-

Nucleating Particles (INP) is poor. In

order to improve our representation

of clouds in models we need to

understand the ice-nucleating ability

of all major aerosol types, including

those from the world’s oceans.

Despite oceans covering over 70% of

the planet and sea spray being one

of the dominant aerosol types in the

atmosphere, its role in the formation

of ice in clouds remains poorly

understood. There are strong

indications that biological organic

components of sea spray can

nucleate ice, but the key limitation to

accurately representing INP in

models over the world’s oceans is

the lack of field data.

In his 5-year project, Ben will develop

and deploy a new semi-autonomous

INP instrument based on novel

microfluidics technology which will

cover the full range of mixed phase

cloud conditions, unlike existing

instruments. It will be housed in a

unique highly instrumented mobile

laboratory, which will allow him to

access the remote oceans from

atmospheric observatories and

research ships. The data from these

campaigns will be used to constrain

the oceanic INP source and include

the data in a state-of-the-art global

aerosol model (GLOMAP). These

activities will allow us to quantify this

potentially important source of INP

which is needed to underpin the next

generation of weather and climate

models.

The IMPALA project

IMPALA is a £3M project, led by

the UK Met Office, addressing the

“Future Climate for Africa” (FCFA)

global model development call

from ERC & DfID.

The Leeds component, with a 3-year

PDRA, is led by Doug Parker (PI),

Piers Forster (Co-I) and John

Marsham (Co-I) and will address

both moist convection and dust uplift.

IMPALA aims to produce a step

change in climate modelling

capability for Africa and will start in

2015, running for 4 years, with staff

based at the Met Office, ACMAD,

University of Cape Town, CEH,

University of Exeter, ICPAC,

University of Leeds, University of

Nairobi, NCAS, University of Oxford,

University of Reading, the South

African Weather Service and

University of Yaounde.

The INCOMPASS project

(Doug Parker and John Marsham)

INCOMPASS a major joint UK-

Indian consortium studying the

dynamics of the Indian Monsoon

funded by NERC and the Indian

Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES),

started early this year. INCOMPASS,

led by Andy Turner in Reading, will

involve a large-scale field campaign

in India and over the adjacent

oceans, in the years 2015 and 2016,

and a programme of computer

modelling, with the specific aim of

improving predictions of the

monsoon. The project will support a

3-year postdoctoral research position

in Leeds. The research group at

Leeds will contribute to the airborne

research programme and will lead

the analysis of new high-resolution

models of the monsoon, using the

Met Office forecast model. Two sister

projects were also funded, to study

Indian Ocean dynamics, and to study

atmospheric aerosol processes in the

monsoon system.

Groovy crystals: a new EPSRC funded project

Crystallisation is a widespread

phenomenon in nature and

technology. Snowflakes, gemstones,

table salt, boiler scale and metals are

all crystalline. The ability to

understand and control when, where

and how crystals form and grow is

essential in areas as diverse as

cloud modelling, pharmaceutical

formulation, the semiconductor

industry and the design of dental and

medical prostheses. At present, our

understanding of nucleation and our

ability to direct and control

PROJECT NEWS

crystallisation is very poor. In Groovy

crystals a team from ICAS, Physics

and Chemistry plan to develop and

apply a technique based on

controlling the topography of surfaces

on which crystals grow.

It is thought that crystallization

becomes more favourable if there are

pits or grooves in a surface. There

have, however, been very few

systematic studies of the effect of

topography on crystallization, and the

data are frequently contradictory.

Consequently, we have almost no

understanding of the type of surface

defects that best favour

crystallisation, and to what extent

they may depend on the nature of the

surface and the nature of the

crystallising substance.

Thanks to recent advances in surface

engineering techniques we are now

in a position to design and

manufacture surfaces with nanoscale

defects in a systematic manner which

will allow a detailed assessment of

their effect on nucleation. This

detailed fundamental understanding

of nucleation is important for

atmospheric ice formation because it

will pave the way for a predictive

capacity of what sort of atmospheric

aerosol particles nucleate ice, under

what conditions they will do so and

how to best describe ice nucleation

in models.

This project is a collaboration

between Ben Murray (ICAS), Hugo

Christenson (PI, Physics), Gavin

Burnell (Physics) and Fiona Meldrum

(Chemistry). Dr Mark Holden has just

taken on the Groovy crystals post-

doc position dealing with ice

nucleation and has a desk in ICAS.

PROJECT NEWS

Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science

School of Earth and Environment

Institute Director, Professor Ken Carslaw

Earth and Environment Building

Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

WELCOME

Our new lecturer in Meteorology,

Juliane Schwendike.

Juliane has research interests in

tropical dynamics generally, and

tropical cyclones in particular. She

has a track record of research im-

pacts, including collaboration with

the reinsurance industry.

Lava pond formed by the Nornahraun eruption.

Photo by Anja Schmidt taken on 21 January 2015.