NCAS International Collaboration in Hazardous Weather and Global Chemical Change

NC-International forms part of NERC commissioning of research and innovation within its own research centres. This proposal is in response to a set of requirements and budget supplied sey by NERC. The NC International programme is a stream of support that allows the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) to undertake research with significant international reach and impact and that is dependent on commitments to international partnering. Whilst much of NCAS research is international in nature and of global applicability, we prioritise here a smaller subset our research to form part of this programme. Our three key criteria for inclusion of research activities with the NCAS-International portfolio are:
- They are of strategic importance to UK science capability or the projection of UK science overseas, for example generating new evidence and data that forms part of national treaty commitments, or contributions to internationally coordinated research.
- They are activities that deliver research and impact of the highest international competitiveness and quality, where the NERC NC investment is highly leveraged by the international dimension.
- The activities are enduring in nature and require a level of on-going commitment to build sustainable international partnerships that support them.

The NCAS NC-International programme focuses on two science themes where there are significant societal requirements, there is the capacity for the UK have a global impact and pressing need.
i) Quantifying and Forecasting the risk of High Impact Weather (HIW) in the Tropics:
Weather and climate related hazards have profound societal and economic consequences. Understanding and mitigating these hazards requires international cooperation - in both the policy and scientific spheres. HIW in the tropics is often associated with aspects of the hydrological cycle either directly linked to precipitation (e.g. flooding and drought) or associated weather conditions (e.g. heat waves or strong winds). The hydrological cycle is the aspect of the Earth's climate system that is most challenging to simulate, especially for the tropics, with weather and climate models having persistent errors. The ability to predict the changing risk of high impact weather events across time scales of hours to decades is critical: (i) to support early warning of risk to lives and property; (ii) for decision making to mitigate the effects of high impact weather in sectors such as energy, agriculture, water management and health; and (iii) to provide risk assessments required to plan and deliver climate resilient societies.

ii) Global Chemical Change.
The chemical composition of the global atmosphere is a critical component of the earth system that controls processes ranging from urban pollution and health through to stratospheric ozone recovery, radiative forcing and climate change. Many critical scientific uncertainties exist relating to past and future global chemical change, and this impact directly on the development of policy, regulation and the management of anthropogenic emissions, at national and international scales. Answering these questions frequently requires changes in global atmospheric composition to be studied over long timescales - decades and beyond. Quantifying and attributing chemical change at the global scale can only be delivered through international partnerships using collaborative efforts in monitoring, data assurance and atmospheric modelling. No country can undertake this on its own, instead research is typically co-ordinated by global agencies such as the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), UN-Environment and UNFCCC. They provide a critical mechanism by which individual researchers, research institutes and countries can contribute to, and benefit from, the global system of atmospheric research.