IPCC's Tropopause Climate Models Will Get A New START

Scientists are deploying an advanced research aircraft to study a region of the atmosphere that influences climate change by affecting the amount of solar heat that reaches Earth's surface. Findings from the project, based at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), will be used by researchers worldwide to improve computer models of global climate in preparation for the next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The project, running from April to June, is known as START 08 (Stratosphere-Troposphere Analyses of Regional Transport). It focuses on a remote boundary zone of the atmosphere called the tropopause, which sits at the bottom of the stratosphere. Scientists are increasingly interested in the tropopause, because of both its importance in the global climate system and because the buildup of greenhouse gases has altered this atmospheric region in ways that are not yet fully understood. read more

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