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The Year of the Block

Geraint Vaughan

1 This is the footer

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This time last year...........

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15 Jan2010

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10 February 2010

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8 March 2010

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2 May 2010: volcanic aerosol

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July 2010 – Russian heatwave: mean 500 mb height Jul 2010

NCEP reanalysis - ESRL

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Here we go again………

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Motivation for workshop

● Blocking is an important (and long-established) problem for both weather and climate

● The impacts of blocking for human activities can be far-reaching

● The dissipation of blocks has been notoriously difficult for NWP models to forecast – but is this still true?

● Climate models tend to have too little blocking – why? Is this a problem with blocking or another problem showing up as no-blocking – i.e. symptom or cause?

Is it time to re-examine the dynamics of blocking? Can we advance the subject?

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Outcome of workshop

● Helps NCAS develop its research programme across Weather and Climate

● Inform NERC theme leaders – is this an area that needs a directed programme?

● Consortium?● International links