The International Working Group on Layered Phenomena in the Mesopause Region holds a workshop every two to three years to bring together experts from all over the world, engaged in research in noctilucent clouds (NLC), Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMC) and Polar Mesospheric Summertime Echoes (PMSE). It offers opportunities to young scientists, research students and also new entrants to the field for close interaction with more experienced researchers.

The major topics of the workshop deal with ground-based lidar measurements of noctilucent clouds and their dynamical and thermal environment; radar observations of PMSE; in situ probing of PMSE, including charged aerosols and their atmospheric and electrical environment; with satellite observations of PMC, the space counterparts of NLC; modeling of the high-latitude summertime mesopause region; and of the microphysics of ice particle evolution.

The workshop is presently sponsored by its parent association, the International Association of Middle Atmospheric Science (IAMAS). The local organization is by Jeff Thayer (SRI International).

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Working Group History

The International Working Group on Layered Phenomena in the Mesopause Region is an official unit of the International Association of Middle Atmospheric Science (IAMAS), which in turn is part of a larger unit, called the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science. The umbrella organization is the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics. This working group is the oldest in IAMAS, being formed in 1979 by Olev Avaste. Prof. Gary Thomas was co-chair with Avaste since 1985, and at Dr. Avaste’s death in 1991, became chair. Prof. Franz-Josef Lübken has been co-chair since 1995.

Previous meetings of the working group have been held in Tallinn, Estonia (1984), Boulder, Colorado (1988), Tallinn (1988), Boulder (1995) and Kühlungsborn, Germany (1999). These meetings have attracted both experimentalists and modelers in the areas of noctilucent clouds, polar mesospheric scattering echoes, composition (neutral and ionized) and dynamics in the mesosphere, as well as global change in the middle atmosphere. The number of active scientists in this area is estimated to be 100.