Vertical Profiles of Temperature Trends

WHAT: Forty-five scientists from four continents discussed changes in vertical temperature structure and what might be causing these changes. WHEN: 13–17 September 2004 WHERE: Hadley Centre, Met Office, Exeter, United Kingdom his workshop aimed to further our understanding of observed changes in upper-air temperatures and their relationship to observed surface and boundary layer climate evolution by considering where models agree and disagree with the available observations and why, and whether other physical changes accompanying changes in vertical temperature structure can help interpret the evolution of temperature changes. The workshop also served as an important step toward the development of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-led U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) report (due in the first quarter of 2006) on the same topic and was designed to complement this process. Technical talks by participants covered a broad range of topics from the latest advances in observational climate records and climate models through efforts to achieve a process-based understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms driving climate change. It was clear that gaps remain in our understanding of both the changes deduced from upper-air observations and the model responses to our historical estimates as well as measurements of external forcings of the climate system. Encouragingly, we are beginning to quantify and reconcile the reasons behind many of the discrepancies among different observational datasets. The workshop focused on the Tropics and tropical processes, as this is generally recognized to be the region of the greatest observational and model uncertainty. Many speakers pointed out that we have limited our observational analyses to a small subset of the available data sources, especially from satellites, and that even short-lived field campaigns can yield useful information. An invited talk on the Global Energy and Water Experiment (GEWEX) emphasized the importance of considering temperature changes in the context of changes in the energy of the system. This requires a holistic VERTICAL PROFILES OF TEMPERATURE TRENDS