Chapman Conference on Atmospheric Absorption; Estes Park, CO; August 13-17, 2001

American Geophysical Union, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports graduate students and young researchers to participate in the Chapman Conference, "Atmospheric Absorption", to be held August 13-17, 2001 at Estes Park, Colorado. The purpose of the conference is to bring together a small number of experts from a wide range of disciplines to focus attention on the fundamental concepts of measuring and modeling atmospheric absorption of solar radiation in an effort to solve a problem that has plagued the atmospheric sciences community for a number of years. This is the so-called "excess absorption" issue, i.e., theoretical models under-predict atmospheric solar absorption when compared with (some) published measurements. The parenthetic "some" is the basis for the intense controversy that surrounds this issue. This is an important issue because the "excess absorption" is thought to be relatively large, ~25-30 watts/m2, and so would have a strong impact on the details of atmospheric heating and circulation in climate model simulations.