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Everyone presenting (both oral and poster) and/or attending the 96th AMS Annual Meeting must register and wear a badge. Early registration rates are valid through Tuesday, 1 December 2015. Registrations forms faxed or mailed to AMS Headquarters will be accepted until 15 December 2015. Online registrations will be accepted throughout the conference. Preregistration forms must be accompanied by one of the following forms of payment: check (personal/business/traveler's), money order, purchase order, or credit card number (MasterCard/VISA/American Express). Foreign checks must be drawn on a U.S. bank and made payable in U.S. dollars. Confirmation of registration will be sent once the form is processed. Refunds (less a $25 processing fee) will be granted only for cancellations received before 22 December 2015. Click here for more information on registration.

This year’s Presidential Forum reflects upon the American Meteorological Society (AMS) annual meeting theme, "Earth System Science in Service to Society" that provides participants a better understanding of living through extreme events. Our society continues to experience the effects of more and more extreme events like hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and drought, some as a result of our changing climate and others as a result of our expanding population. The AMS needs to continue to address lessons learned, and more importantly, identify what future actions it will take to help mitigate the impact of these devastating life-changing events. To highlight this, we’ve invited an outstanding panel of speakers – Admiral Thad Allen, United States Coast Guard (ret), Executive Vice President Booz Allen Hamilton; Max Mayfield, Director, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Hurricane Center (ret); Dr. Kerry Emanuel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Dr. Shirley Laska, Professor Emerita, and founding past Director of the Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology, University of New Orleans. Moderator Maureen McCann, News 13 Orlando, will lead a discussion of the panelists' personal experiences during Hurricane Katrina and Deepwater Horizon. The panel will also address AMS’s current activities that encompass research and forecasting of events and inspire our members to embrace a renewed sense of purpose as they direct our Society in the coming years.

Over the last few years, significant advances have been made in both in situ and remote sensing technologies for measuring greenhouse gases (GHGs). The successful launch of global observing systems such as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2), the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) missions as well as deployment of localized surface networks and aircraft campaigns such as the Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE) and the Megacities Carbon Project, is starting to yield more information on both natural and anthropogenic sources than ever before. While these multiple observational platforms provide a significant potential for the monitoring of GHG emissions, more and more uncertainties are coming to light regarding our understanding of the global and regional budgets of GHGs, errors due to deficiency in atmospheric transport modeling (especially related to convection and vertical mixing), and identification and quantification of climate feedback sensitivities. This session solicits abstracts that address these uncertainties using models and observations and provide new insights on understanding GHG dynamics at various spatial (local to global) and temporal (sub-diurnal to decadal) scales. We encourage contributions on current and prospective observation technologies for GHGs, modeling studies to quantify budgets and/or uncertainties in GHG flux estimates, and evaluation and benchmarking of GHG estimates from Earth System Models using contemporary observations. We also encourage studies of perturbations to the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems in response to climate variability and change, especially as they combine models and observations or pertain to carbon-climate feedback. In addition, we seek contributions on improved quantification and understanding of underlying GHG emissions at the urban scale, policy issues related to GHG monitoring and regulation, and how the current state of the science is informing policy decisions.

Dust from both desert and more vegetated areas contributes a major fraction of the atmospheric aerosol with a variety of sources, compositions and impacts. The goal of this session is to bring together scientist from different disciplines working on the characterisation, emission, atmospheric transport, chemical transformation and impact of dust from desert, vegetated or agricultural areas, not only including mineral but also organic and other constituents. We invite and welcome contributions from the general areas (1) speciation and characterisation of the mineralogy, organic content and other constituents of dust sampled from source regions or directly from the atmosphere, (2) emission fluxes, transport and chemical transformation of dust in the atmosphere, and (3) cloud and climate impact of atmospheric dust, including optical properties and cloud microphysics like CCN activation and heterogeneous ice nucleation.

Please join other attendees for the Opening Reception of the 2016 Annual Meeting, sponsored by the exhibiting companies. Local government officials and other dignitaries will be present for the ribbon-cutting event.

Large uncertainties exist in the effects of atmospheric gases and aerosols on weather and climate which impair our predictive capabilities. This session will focus on studies showing new developments and assessing these effects on multiple spatial and temporal scales. Studies including, but not limited to, aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions, ozone and chemistry impacts, and effects of performing data assimilation for atmospheric composition will be considered. Studies based on observations, models and both are welcome.

Clouds affect the distributions and abundance of atmospheric constituents in many ways. This session seeks abstracts that address 1) vertical transport and redistribution of trace gases and aerosols by clouds; 2) wet scavenging; 3) aqueous chemistry; 4) lightning NOx production; 5) modification of photolysis rates; and 6) resulting downwind effects on new particle formation and photochemistry. Results from both field measurement programs (such as SOAS, SENEX, DC3, SEAC4RS, CONTRAST) and modeling studies are sought.

Atmospheric convection and its impacts on chemical tracer distribution and transport present a significant challenge to modeling of both climate and atmospheric composition. The global and regional impacts of convection on clouds, water vapor and trace gases are large and poorly quantified especially in the upper troposphere, leading to significant uncertainties in radiative forcing and in the impact on global air quality. The goal of this proposed session is to solicit recent global observations from satellite and their applications for improving model simulations of convective transport and associated atmospheric composition. We encourage abstract submissions to the following topics: Topic 1: Modeling of convection in global, regional, and process level models Topic 2: Modeling convective influence on atmospheric composition in global and regional chemistry models Topic 3: Using satellite observations to diagnosis convective influence on global and regional atmospheric composition.

Recent increases in oil and gas extraction and production activities have raised questions about the ambient impact of the emissions from these processes and facilities, which have been known to emit a variety of compounds to the atmosphere that can affect local, regional and possibly global air quality. As future plans for the increase of oil and gas production are considered in the United States, the overall effect on air quality is an important consideration. Research conducted on qualifying and quantifying these emissions is relatively new, and many more experiments and modeling studies are needed to provide a clear understanding of them and their impact on air quality. This session will allow scientists to showcase their observational and modeling studies concerning emissions from oil and gas development and their impacts on air quality. The session will include invited talks and submitted oral and poster presentations. Student participation will be especially encouraged. Student presentations are particularly encouraged. Students are eligible to compete for cash prizes and certificates from AMS awarded to outstanding first author student presentations.

Both aerosol properties and meteorology conditions in the Amazon Basin vary significantly among different seasons. Amazon Basin represents one of the most pristine and natural continental sites but polluted situations occur with the perturbations of tropical megacity pollution and biomass burning emissions. Past studies showed very complex interactions between chemistry, aerosols, clouds, and meteorology, and therefore, a challenge to understand and model convection and precipitation in the region. Very recent field experiments, including GoAmazon2014/15 and ACRIDICON-CHUVA, have been conducted over the Amazon region to reveal new insights in the complex interactions in Amazonia. This special session will discuss the new observational and modeling studies on meteorology, aerosols, clouds, convection and precipitation and the associated interactions related to the GoAmazon2014/15 and ACRIDICON-CHUVA. We will have invited talks, contributed oral and poster presentations. Student presentations are particularly encouraged. Cash prizes and a certificate from AMS will be awarded to outstanding first author student presentations.

Joint session

Anthropogenic emissions to the atmosphere can result in substantial adverse impacts to human health and the environment. Understanding the nature and magnitude of these impacts requires knowledge of pollutant source emissions, the transport and physical/chemical transformation of those emissions in the atmosphere, and sinks for their eventual removal. This session will focus broadly on these topics for primary and secondary gas and particle phase pollutants. Transport over local to global scales; transformations via gas phase, aqueous phase, and heterogeneous processes; and removal by dry and wet deposition processes are all of interest. Presentations that examine combinations of emissions, transport, transformation, and/or deposition processes are of particular interest. Student participation is especially encouraged. Students giving first author posters or platform presentations will be eligible to compete for cash prizes and certificates from AMS.

Recent laboratory and field studies provided new insights into formation, growth, phase, viscosity, and volatility of secondary organic aerosols (SOA). The data indicate that under most atmospheric conditions SOA particles are significantly more viscous and orders of magnitude less volatile than assumed in traditional modeling approaches. In addition, recent SOA formation yield measurements cast doubt on previously reported values. This session will broadly highlight new results of experimental and modeling studies that address these aspects of SOA and their effect on SOA atmospheric loadings, evolution, and effect on climate.