January 11, 2008

                                   INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON GLOBAL DIMMING AND BRIGHTENING

                                 International Workshop of the Israel Science Foundation

                                                              Ein Gedi, Israel, February 10-14, 2008

                                                                              Updated Information for Participants

Dear Participant,

           Receipt of this letter indicates that you are registered for the Workshop on Global Dimming and Brightening to be held next month in Israel. The organizing committee is working on the program and making a sincere effort to include as many speakers as possible from those who have submitted topics. However, in order to leave enough time for stimulating discussions and preparation of a summary and recommendations, only a limited number of presentations will be given and all participants will have an opportunity to make comments during the break-out sessions; all participants, including the presenters, are encouraged to prepare posters that will be scheduled for viewing before discussions start.

            At this point we would like to call for abstracts from all the presenters as well as for Posters so they can be included in the Workshop Program. Abstracts should preferably be one-pagers in WORD for WINDOWS.

          To help to focus the workshop, the Organizing Committee prepared an outline (attached here) summarizing the key objectives. For presenters, we recommend to consider adjustment to their presentations and titles along these lines.

          We consider the breakout groups to be a most important part of the workshop. We assume that everyone will be staying for these and participate actively in making these sessions and resulting reports a success. If a sufficient number of participants express interest, we will request a special section in JGR Atmospheres to include papers from the workshop. We will bring up this issue at the workshop.

        The program will be ready for distribution within the next few days and will be forwarded to you promptly. We are open to comments on the plans and program, which should be emailed at the earliest, but not later than Jan 20^th. Workshop attendance is by invitation only however, if you are aware of people that can contribute to the workshop and might have been missed in the first round of invitations, please have him/her inform the Chair of the Organizing Committee as soon as possible and if feasible (financial constraints), he/she will receive an invitation.

          The workshop will take place at the Ein Gedi Kibbutz (http://www.inisrael.com/eingedi/en_index.htm). For those who are not familiar with local arrangements and might need extra help to get to Ein Gedi please contact Target Conferences, PO Box 29041, Tel Aviv 61290, Israel, Tel: +972 3 5175150, Fax: +972 3 5175155, E-mail: global@targetconf.com

 

Wishing you a happy New Year and a safe trip. We look forward to seeing you at the workshop.

 Best regards,

Shep Cohen and Yinon Rudich

for the Organizing Committee 

                                                            Framework and guidelines for the Participants

         The ultimate objective of the workshop is to integrate along the following structure so that we put the subject of GDB in the context of questions in Topic 3. This will be transformed into a document to be published in a high profile target journal (e.g. EOS, BAMS).

Workshop logical structure:

1.   Measurements of the components of dimming and brightening

a.                   How much, where and when?

b.                  How does it partition between aerosols, clouds and gas absorption?

 

2.   Trends in aerosols, clouds, precipitation and radiation.

a.                   Relations between trends in aerosols, cloud cover and their properties.

b.                  Feedbacks through impacts on precipitation.

 

3.   Implications for understanding present and future climates.

a.                   Impacts of differential dimming on modulating circulation patterns and the hydrological cycle.

b.                  Implications for understanding present and future climates, and influences on hydrology, agriculture, and land use.

c.                   Relations between surface and TOA forcing and possible impacts on present and future global temperatures.

 

The workshop is organized to address these topics in a structured way. The participants are requested to prepare their presentations such that they will be in this context. In the workgroups we can identify the known and missing links in this flow, and practical commendations. We will have three breakout groups on the three subjects, and then combine them together.

 

The outcome will put GDB in an updated context.

 Sponsoring Agencies: