Open AccessSummer School Seeks to Better Link Atmosphere and Ocean Convection Studies: Fundamental Issues in Geophysical and Environmental Fluid Mechanics: Atmosphere‐Ocean Convection in Climate Dynamics; Valsavaranche, Italy, 18–27 June 2007
Author(s) -
Yano JunIchi,
Griffiths Ross,
BouruetAubertot Pascale
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2008eo060005
Subject(s) - atmosphere (unit) , convection , geophysical fluid dynamics , climatology , context (archaeology) , climate model , atmospheric sciences , geology , environmental science , meteorology , climate change , geography , oceanography , paleontology
To provide Ph.D. students with a coherent overview of the current understanding of atmosphere and ocean convection in the context of global climate modeling, an Alpine summer school was organized in Valsavaranche, Italy, during June 2007. About 50 students from five continents and three islands participated in this unique event. Lectures and class discussions covered topics including asymptotic analyses, computational modeling, field campaigns, and laboratory analogs. The emphasis of the school was on deep convection, the form of convection of greatest importance to global circulation and climate. However, a series of lecturers revealed that atmospheric and oceanographic convection each pose quite different complexities. The presence of water vapor as a minor constituent of the atmosphere substantially alters the thermodynamics, and lecturers discussed how it is necessary to model a water cycle complicated by cloud formation, a variety of ice crystals, precipitation, and reevaporation. Oceanographic convection, on the other hand, is complicated through strong coupling with wind stress forcing, bottom topography, and baroclinic eddies. It still remains a major challenge to identify the various processes governing deep convection in high‐latitude oceans and the tropical atmosphere, and the coupling of this convection with larger‐scale circulation. Parameterization of convection, though clearly essential in climate modeling, is simply too extensively relied upon in both atmosphere and ocean models.