"2009 COAA-SCC Summer Workshop and Picnic Report"

[COAASCC]

The COAA Southern California Chapter (COAA-SCC) held a Summer
Workshop and Picnic on September 12, 2009 at California Institute of
Technology (Caltech). Over 40 scholars and students from UCI, UCLA,JPL
and Caltech attended the workshop. The theme of the workshop is
Recent Advances in Atmospheric and Oceanic Research. There were two
invited keynote speeches, four oral talks and nine posters, covering
data analysis, modeling, satellite, remote sensing, instrument design,
and other related topics.

Professor Jin-Yi Yu, Vice Chair of COAA-SCC, from University of
California, Irvine (UCI), gave the welcome remark and introduced two
keynote speakers, Professor John Seinfeld from Caltech and Professor
Yongkang Xue, Chair of COAA-SCC, from University of California, Los
Angeles (UCLA). Professor Seinfeld shared his vision in impacts of
aerosol on clouds and the mechanisms how aerosols impact clouds.
Professor Xue reviewed the past and achievement of land/atmosphere
interaction study, and looked forward to the future development.

In four oral presentations, Dr. Yu Gu of UCLA presented her research
in dust storm reduction due to precipitation and temperature
enhancement in northwestern china; Dr. Xianwei Wang of UCI discussed
the MODIS albedo bias at high solar zenith angles in Greenland; Dr.
Sheng Wu of Caltech demonstrated current advances in Mid-InfraRed
spectroscopic sensing using Quantum Cascade Lasers; and Dr. Changming
Dong of UCLA showed the simulated seasonal and interannual variations
in sea ice and oceanic circulation in the Bering Sea.

After the oral sessions were the picnic and poster viewing. There were
9 high quality posters covering broad research topics such as direct
sun measurements of NO_2 column abundances With FTUVS; tide
modeling; CMAM simulations of carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, and
methane; coastal ocean data assimilation and forecasting system;
groundwater modeling; locating tropopause folds with the CTM and
satellite measurement; reactive oxygen species generation; and impacts
of land surface processes on the south American monsoon system
simulations. The participants had lively discussions while enjoying
the food and viewing posters.