This year’s NDACC Steering Committee meeting took place from September 11th to 14th at the Kultur- and Tagungszentrum in Murnau, Germany. Murnau is a small town close to the Bavarian Alps, about 60 km south of Munich. Deutscher Wetterdienst Hohenpeissenberg hosted the meeting choosing the picturesque location with meeting venue, hotels, and restaurants in easy walking distance. The hosts organized a visit to the nearby Hohenpeissenberg NDACC station on September 15th.
Fig. 1: Kultur- und Tagungszentrum in Murnau (KTM). Source: KTM website.
This Steering Committee meeting was special because it was the last NDACC meeting organized by Kathy Thompson, the very first of the first ladies of NDACC. Kathy has worked with NDACC from its beginnings as NDSC in the early 1990s. She has done an amazing job planning and organizing Steering Committee meetings and managing scientists, among many other things within NDSC and NDACC, often behind the scenes. Kathy is a big part of why NDACC is a successful international network today. Kathy’s retirement was duly celebrated with gifts of a milk, sugar, and often cocoa-based product called “chocolate”. Rumor has it that another NDACC first lady (based in Belgium) has access to some of the best “chocolate” in the world.
Kathy’s NDACC job will be taken over by two new “first ladies”: Lynn Kennedy (Bay Area Research Institute / NASA Ames) and Reem Hannun (University of Pittsburgh and soon NASA Ames). Lynn and Reem both came to the Murnau meeting, helped, and learned from Kathy through firsthand experience with the NDACC crowd. We hope that Lynn and Reem enjoyed the meeting and will return for future NDACC meetings.
The agenda of this year’s steering group meeting was similar to previous years including updates on:
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Steering Committee membership, on NDACC website and NDACC data center,
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NDACC communications and public outreach,
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stations with reports from the different NDACC working groups,
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interactions with cooperating networks and with various international research initiatives.
An important topic was the discussion of plans for a paper celebrating 35 years of NDACC and the corresponding NDACC Symposium in the eastern US in 2025. In addition, we discussed several challenges, including the current shut-down of the NDACC Mauna Loa station, which has been cut off by lava from the 2022 volcanic eruption. On a more somber note, we paid tribute to J.P. Pommereau, who passed away earlier this year.
Fig. 2: NDACC Steering Committee and local scientists in Murnau, Sept. 14th 2023.
Thursday was dedicated to very interesting science talks on a range of topics including: long-term trace-gas measurements at Schneefernerhaus-Zugspitze; ICOS high tower measurements of CO2 and CH4 in Germany; aerosol measurements by German and European ceilometer networks, VOCs at Hohenpeissenberg; technical aspects of Brewer & Dobson total ozone cross-sections; ozone trends in the Pacific; differences between ground and space based UV measurements; and the big picture topics of links between NDACC and ACTRIS, or NDACC and WMO’s Global Greenhouse Gas Watch (GGGW) with its new GAW implementation plan.
Meeting attendees experienced some local highlights as traditional Bavarian folklore groups and oom-pah bands performed next door to our meeting room. On Tuesday, the conference dinner featured a whole roasted piglet, wearing sunglasses and wheeled in to a James Bond sound-track. Overall, this in-person meeting was an excellent opportunity to catch up on NDACC news and opportunities, to network with colleagues, and to see exciting activity in atmospheric science programs.