The NDACC Steering Committee held its annual meeting 13-16 September 2021. Originally scheduled to take place at the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction (NCWCP) in College Park, MD, the meeting was changed to a virtual format because of ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. The Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB) graciously hosted the Webex platform for the meeting. The agenda covered four four-hour sessions, allowing the attendees to discuss a wide variety of topics, including station and data submission status; the move of the Data Host Facility (DHF) from NCWCP to the NASA Langley Research Center; reports from the Working Groups, Cooperating Networks, Ad-Hoc Theme Groups, and projects relevant to NDACC; the new relationship with the European Brewer Network (EUBREWNET); and plans for a peer-reviewed publication to detail NDACC’s measurement strategies and emphases. In addition, a number of very interesting science talks were presented.
A number of changes to the NDACC Steering Committee were announced / took place during the meeting. Anne Thompson, NDACC Co-Chair since 2014, stepped down as of the end of the 2021 meeting, and the Steering Committee elected Irina Petropavlovskikh as Anne’s successor.
Steering Committee updates included welcoming the following new members:
- Roeland van Malderen [Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut (KNMI) / Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute] to the Sonde Working Group, succeeding René Stübi.
- Takafumi Sugita [National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES)] to the Satellite Working Group, succeeding Masato Shiotani.
- Chu-Yong Chung [National Institute of Meteorological Sciences (NIMS) / Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA)] as the new representative from South Korea.
- Brad Hall [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML)], succeeding Jim Elkins as the HATS Cooperating Network Representative.
- John Rimmer [University of Manchester / UK] and Alberto Redondas [AEMET / Meteorological State Agency, Spain] as the Co-Representatives for EUBREWNET, which was newly established as a NDACC Cooperating Network in April 2021. Alberto also is the Brewer Working Group Representative.
Sadly, Stuart McDermid passed away on 13 January 2021. Stuart was involved with NDACC (formerly NDSC) from its early days, and the ozone lidar observations he conducted were – and continue to be – an important component of the Network. Stuart was the Lidar Working Group Co-Representative from 1996 to 2005, and he served as NDACC Co-Chair from 2011 to 2014, when he retired from his position at JPL as a Senior Scientist. Stuart made many important contributions to the Network, and his colleagues posted messages showing their appreciation for his expertise, his willingness to help others, and his congenial attitude. A number of tributes and photographs were displayed, and the group held a moment of silence in honor of Stuart.
The online meeting was considered to be a great success, with a significant number of members in attendance. Moving forward, the Steering Committee is hopeful for a return to an in-person meeting in all 2022, COVID-19 health and safety issues permitting; however, plans for a virtual meeting will be given a high priority, given the current situation associated with the pandemic.