Schedules

• The final plan (observation facilities and participants) of the January 2016 campaign will be fixed in November 2015.
• The observation campaign will be performed in January 2016
• Summary of observations are made. Data are accumulated in a server computer, or a portal site of the data is prepared, depending on the usability by the end of February 2016.
• Analysis starts in March 2016 and exchange of knowledge from the results is made as needed.
• Preliminary results are presented in International Symposium on the Whole Atmosphere (ISWA) in 14–16 September 2016.

ISWA URL: http://pansy.eps.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/iswa/

Observation strategy

Observation window: 00:00UTC 15 to 24:00UTC 31 January 2016.

1. Observation will start three days before the predicted SSW onset. Kaoru Sato will send an email for once the onset is predicted, which describes the date of onset of SSW and the observation start time and end time. Universal Time is used for the description of time.
2. If the SSW onset is predicted before and after the observation window, observations will be performed by only available sites. The earliest record of the (major) SSW is 28 November, 1968. All major SSWs occurred in December or later after that. We chose this observation window (15- 31 January 2016), because most typical SSWs so far tend to occur during this period.
3. If an SSW onset is not predicted before 21 January 2016, we will start simultaneous observations at all sites on 00:00UTC 22 January and continue until 24:00UTC 31 January. This observation will provide valuable data for comparison with those from future successful SSW observation campaigns.

The atmosphere condition this boreal winter

A strong El Nino condition is currently on-going. Statistics show that a strong wave-one type (a displacement type) SSW tends to occur in El Nino conditions. This is a good news for us. In contrast, the equatorial stratospheric QBO is in a westerly phase. This is not a favorable condition for SSW.

The announcement of observation start time according to the SSW onset prediction

The PANSY radar group will look at following prediction sites:

• ECMWF
• NOAA/CPC
• NASA/GSFC
• JMA (analysis only)
• SNAP

We greatly appreciate these sites for their providing invaluable information.

Two types of announcements will be sent by email.

• A daily report on northern hemisphere stratospheric condition which will be sent to members who wish to receive: This report will be sent by Yoshihiro Tomikawa at NIPR (PANSY group, tomikawa@nipr.ac.jp) every day. Please let us (Kaoru Sato and Yoshihiro Tomikawa) know if you want to receive the daily reports.
• Announcements regarding the observation start time which will be sent to all members: The first one is to inform an estimated observation start time when the SSW onset is predicted. This announcement will be sent soon after the SSW onset prediction is made. The second one is to inform the observation start time and end time. This announcement will be sent one day before the observation start time. The second one will be sent even for the observation starting at 0000UTC 22 January, until which no SSW onset occurs. These announcements will be sent by Kaoru Sato at U Tokyo (PANSY group, kaoru@eps.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp).