Director's Report

We are coming to the end of UGAMP's current contract with NERC (in March 1997). Mark Rodwell is masterminding the production of a very attractive brochure detailing UGAMP's achievements over the past five years. NERC intends to support the continuation of UGAMP for a further five years as one of its "core programmes" in atmospheric science. In consultation with PIs, I'm working on a science plan for the new contract at the moment. The essence of UGAMP's role remains the same: to understand the atmosphere, and its links to other systems (e.g. the oceans), in order to advance the science of climate prediction. Two of the new areas that we intend to develop strongly are atmosphere-ocean interactions, especially in the Atlantic sector, and tropospheric chemistry. We hope to continue to benefit from access to recent versions of global forecasting models from ECMWF and the Met Office.

We are seeking to develop a number of NERC "thematic" programmes around the core programme. A thematic programme on data assimilation has been approved for funding, and programmes on stratospheric ozone, atmosphere-ocean coupling, and palaeoclimatology are being considered.

The next UGAMP summer meeting will be held on 16-18 July at the University of Reading, where you will be able to admire the new meteorology building, in which CGAM is housed with the department of meteorology and the Joint Centre for Mesoscale Meteorology. And it's only a number 17 bus ride away from the delights of Reading town centre.

Alan OĠNeill
(Reading)

Editorial

In this issue we focus on the UGAMP research being carried out using the ECMWF Integrated Forecast System (IFS) model and the UK Meteorological OfficeĠs (UKMO) Unified Model (UM). Other sections in this newsletter look briefly at some of the other subject areas that make up UGAMP research. A big thanks to everyone who took the time to contribute an article to this issue. This is the largest issue I've ever had to put together!

The newsletter will be issued 3 times a year starting from this issue; in January, July (conference issue) and September. The issues in January and September will focus on a particular area of UGAMP science. The July issue will contain a full list of abstracts for the conference. Suggestions for particular topics for future issues are welcome. Email glenn@atm.ch.cam.ac.uk.

The UGAMP Newsletter is distributed to all UGAMP sites, all Scientific Steering Group (SSG) members and the Natural Environment Research Council. An Internet edition of the Newsletter is also to be found on the World-Wide Web at the address: http://www.atm.ch.cam.ac.uk/
acmsu/newsletter.html.

Glenn Carver
(Cambridge, Chemistry)

© 1997 Centre for Atmospheric Science/UGAMP. All scientific articles are unpublished. No text or graphics may be copied or used without permisson. Newsletter Editor: Glenn Carver, Cambridge University.