Date

Please contact William T Sturges W.Sturges [at] uea.ac.uk
or visit the EGS web site:

http://www.copernicus.org/EGS/egsga/nice00/nice00.htm for more information

Dear Colleagues,

Announcement of Special Session at EGS 2000 and Call for Papers

There will be a Special Session on "Atmospheric composition and chemistry of
the 20th century from firn records" held as part of the European Geophysical
Society's XXV General Assembly and Millennium Conference on Earth, Planetary
& Solar Systems Sciences, Nice, France, 25 - 29 April 2000.

An outline of the Special Session is given below. For full details on the
EGS 2000 meeting please refer to
http://www.copernicus.org/EGS/egsga/nice00/nice00.htm.

You are cordially invited to submit abstracts for oral or poster
presentations for this session. Papers are welcome on all chemical
measurements of firn that relate to atmospheric gas-phase chemical change -
this includes both measurements in firn air and of adsorbed species in the
firn itself. Please pass this announcement on to other colleagues who you
feel might be interested.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION
15 December 1999!

Details of submission procedures are given on the above web site. Abstracts
can be submitted by mail, by e-mail, or by FTP to the EGS.
A copy should also be sent to the convenor (see address at bottom).
There is an option to produce a published Special Section of the proceedings
of this session in the Physics and Chemistry of the Earth
http://www.copernicus.org/EGS/pce/pce.html.

Financial support schemes are available for young European and North
American scientists, and for Eastern European Scientists of all ages
http://www.copernicus.org/EGS/egsga/support_prog.htm. Meeting delegates will
benefit from free annual membership of the EGS.

Session Description:

ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND CHEMISTRY
OF THE 20th CENTURY FROM FIRN RECORDS

Convenors: W.T. Sturges (Norwich, UK)
Co-convenors: J. Chappellaz (Grenoble, FR) and M. O. Battle (Princeton, US)

Firn (unconsolidated snow overlying ice caps and glaciers) contains a record
of atmospheric gas-phase composition dating back over many decades, both in
the interstitial air and in the firn matrix itself. In the last few years
there has been a sharp increase in interest in firn air studies, and their
interpretation in terms of changing atmospheric composition and chemistry.
Experiments have included the European Union 'FIRETRACC/100' project of firn
air measurements in both hemispheres, US-funded firn drilling in both
Greenland and Antarctica, and an Australian programme also in Antarctica.

A wealth of chemical and isotopic information has been emerging from these
projects on issues ranging from the dramatic rise in ozone depleting
substances, through changes in man-made radiatively-important gases, to
indicators of changing oxidising capacity of the troposphere. This session
will highlight the major findings of these, and related, measurements of
gases such as methane, carbon monoxide, fluorocarbons and other halocarbons,
non-methane hydrocarbons, alkyl nitrates, etc. as well as irreversibly
adsorbed gaseous species such as H2O2 and HCHO.

Particular emphasis will be placed on the implications for understanding
stratospheric and tropospheric chemical change during the 20th century, and
on the insight gained regarding sources and sinks of trace gases to the
atmosphere. Issue related to firn diffusion modelling, and implications of
firn records for interpreting the ice core record will also be addressed.

Please feel free to contact the convenor or co-convenors if you have any
queries.

Co-convenor:

Dr William T Sturges
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK
+44-1603-592018 or 2016
+44-1603-452420 Fax
w.sturges [at] uea.ac.uk
http://www.uea.ac.uk/~acsoe

Co-convenors:

Dr Jerome Chappellaz
CNRS Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de
l'Environnement 54 rue Moliere - Domaine Universitaire
BP 96 38402 Saint Martin d'Heres Cedex FRANCE
Tel. +33 47682-4264 Fax +33 47682-4201
jerome [at] glaciog.ujf-grenoble.fr
http://glaciog.ujf-grenoble.fr

Dr Mark O. Battle
Department of Geosciences
M-49 Guyot Hall
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
+1 (609) 258-2756
+1 (609) 258-1274 Fax
battle [at] princeton.edu
http://geoweb.princeton.edu/staff/Battle/Index.html