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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.

This session is focused on the development and evaluation of aerosol cloud interactions in large-scale (regional and global) models. Large-scale models of weather and climate continue to advance their representations of aerosols, and the interactions between aerosols and cloud microphysics. There remain large uncertainties and discrepancies between observational based estimates of climate-scale aerosol-cloud interaction effects and the same effects estimated from global models. This uncertainty contributes to uncertainty in radiative forcing of climate, and in uncertainty regarding aerosol effects on precipitation. We invite papers on the development, evaluation, and analysis of Aerosol-Cloud-Interactions in large-scale models and intercomparison and coordinated modeling experiments that shed light on these issues. We encourage analysis of observational constraints on aerosol-cloud interactions and comparisons to models, both radiative effects and effects on precipitation in large-scale models. We also encourage process based studies using cloud resolving and other models that seek to bridge the scale gap between observations, detailed and large scale models.

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.

Aerosol-cloud interactions have significant influences on natural climate variability and are also one of the largest uncertainties in the estimate of anthropogenic climate forcing. A variety of aerosol-cloud interaction mechanisms and processes have been identified over the past few decades. This session seeks to advance the understanding of how various aerosol-cloud interactions impact the local and/or global radiative energy budget and consequent implications. We welcome discussion forum related to i) how microphysical interactions between aerosol and cloud modulate the cloud radiative properties and radiative effects (e.g., Twomey and lifetime effect); how the relative position of aerosol and cloud (e.g., aerosol above, below and inside clouds) influences the radiative energy distribution; and iii) novel measurement (remote sensing and in situ) and modeling techniques to quantify the impacts of aerosol-cloud interactions on radiation.

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.

Many shallow cloud systems are sensitive to changes in aerosol properties, which modulate cloud microphysical properties and can influence precipitation formation and cloud scale dynamics. In addition, absorbing aerosols can modulate the thermodynamic environment experienced by clouds. Ultimately, these controls may alter low cloud radiative properties and climate. Aerosol particles, in turn, are impacted by shallow cloud processes. Together, these interactions result in a coupling of the aerosol-cloud system whose coupling strength is highly variable and is poorly understood in terms of basic process understanding. Correctly representing this coupling has proven challenging to represent in large scale models. In this session, we invite presentations on all topics related to aerosol-cloud coupling in shallow clouds, including those addressing basic physical understanding, the quantification of aerosol indirect effects, cloud effects on aerosols, and the coupling between aerosols and boundary layer turbulence, cloud dynamics, and precipitation.

Aerosol effects on cirrus clouds are highly uncertain both in terms of magnitude and sign of the effective radiative forcing (IPCC, 2013). The key uncertainties of aerosol effects on cirrus clouds are tied to the limited understanding of the properties (e. g., size distribution, chemical composition) of ice nucleating aerosols in the upper troposphere as well as limited knowledge of the environmental conditions (e. g., ice supersaturation, vertical velocity) leading to the formation of cirrus clouds through homogeneous or heterogeneous ice nucleation and affecting their evolution and life cycle. Recent observational studies indicate that heterogeneous ice nucleation could be the dominant freezing mechanism operating in cirrus clouds because heterogeneous ice nucleation requires lower values of ice supersaturation whereas recent GCM simulations find aerosol effects on cirrus clouds smaller than previously estimated and of opposite sign. This session will discuss results from new observational and modeling studies relevant to aerosol effects on cirrus clouds, including laboratory studies on ice nucleation, observations from recent field campaigns (e. g., ATTREX, DC3, SEAC4RS, AIRTOSS, ML-CIRRUS), remote sensing (ground-based and space-borne), process-oriented modeling, and geoengineering of cirrus clouds. Specific topics of interest are (but not limited to) the formation, life cycle, microphysical and radiative properties of cirrus clouds as well as the physiochemical properties of ice nucleating aerosols in the upper troposphere.

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.

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

Monsoon is the most distinct climate regime that affects the well-being for more than two thirds of the world population, chiefly in the developing and undeveloped countries. The majority of the monsoon regions happen to have heavy aerosol loading such as south and east Asia, Africa, South America, etc. Any interactions between aerosol and monsoon are likely to have profound impact on the weather and climate in these and downstream regions. Fundamentally, the monsoon climate is driven by heat sources and sinks in the atmosphere stemming from the strong thermal contrast between land and ocean induced by the seasonally varying incoming solar radiation. Aerosols, by reflecting and absorbing solar radiation, reduce surface insolation and weaken the land-ocean thermal contrast, thus inhibiting the formation of monsoons. The atmospheric thermodynamic state may also be altered by aerosol absorption, aerosol microphysical effect by serving as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) or ice nuclei (IN), etc. Many mechanisms have been put forth regarding how aerosols modulate cloud and precipitation, monsoon circulation, amplitude, frequency, intensity, and phase of monsoon changes. These mechanisms are complicated by feedbacks with large-scale moist environmental dynamics. There exist multi-scale interactions between aerosols and the monsoon system from the location-specific alteration of single-column stability to the organization of meso-scale cloud clusters, and to the modification of monsoon circulation and precipitation on continental scales. Climate-scale numerical model simulations have indicated strong sensitivities to aerosol loading and properties. This special session invites papers on any aspects of aerosol-monsoon interactions including but not exclusive to: (1) Aerosol properties in monsoon dominant regions; (2) Monsoon phenomena that are likely affected by aerosol (3) Fundamental mechanisms by which aerosol affect monsoon circulation, energy and water cycles; (4) Long-term trends of changes in monsoon climate that may be linked with aerosol; (5) Social and economic implications of aerosol-monsoon climate interactions.

Aerosols (both natural and anthropogenic) interact with clouds and precipitation in complicated ways and with large uncertainties. They not only change cloud/precipitation microphysical processes, but also modify precipitation through radiation and dynamical feedback. This session welcomes both observational and modeling studies that aim to reduce uncertainties in aerosol impact on precipitation. These can range from process-based studies of aerosol impacts on cloud microphysics, to ensemble simulations of precipitation systems and their responses to aerosol forcing, to model parameterization development leading to better representations of aerosol-precipitation interactions in cloud, regional and global models.