April 2022 Update

April Highlights

  • New Leadership Committee
  • Advisory Committee Retreat
  • AGU Town Hall Summary and Introductory Video
  • Scientific Merit Review Panel
  • Updated SCoPEx Research Plan

Leadership Committee

For the past year, the Advisory Committee has rotated the chairperson for each meeting. After careful consideration and reflection on the effectiveness of the Committee’s work, the group decided that a more regular leadership structure would better serve the objectives for the Committee. Dr. Louise Bedsworth, Dr. Sikina Jinnah, and Dr. Shuchi Talati were unanimously selected as our leadership committee. Dr. Shuchi Talati re-joined the Committee in April after leaving government service. 

Advisory Committee Retreat

The Advisory Committee recently met at Harvard University for a hybrid retreat in-person and virtually for 2 days. During this time the Committee met with Harvard stakeholders including the research team, Harvard’s Vice Provost for Research and for Climate and Sustainability, and members of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program Advisory Committee. The Committee continued to develop plans for a global and local engagement process. In the coming months you can expect more information about this plan including a global public feedback opportunity.

AGU Town Hall Summary 

The SCoPEx Advisory Committee held a virtual panel discussion on December 15th, 2021 at the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Fall Meeting. The motivation for such a discussion was to gather feedback  on various possible approaches to public engagement for SCoPEx from experts on public engagement and participants at AGU. This town hall serves as another consultation with multiple stakeholders to design an engagement protocol for SCoPEx. We have shared on our Societal Review Page a brief preview video for the event and a summary of the conversation with panelists. 

Scientific Merit Review Panel

To assess the scientific merit of the proposed SCoPEx project, the Advisory Committee has identified 3 panel members to support the peer review process. These panelists have a deep knowledge of stratospheric chemistry and aerosol microphysics and will have the following responsibilities to support the peer review process: 

  • Support the selection of peer reviewers. 
  • Evaluate the reviews.
  • Provide a summary report to the Advisory Committee about the scientific merit of the experiment based on that evaluation.
  • Meet with the Advisory Committee to communicate the findings of the summary report.

We have met with the panelists and are in the process of selecting peer reviewers. We look forward to working with the panelists to ensure the scientific merit undergoes a rigorous review process. Panelist names and their summary report will be released on our website at the conclusion of the review process. 

Updated SCoPEx Research Plan

The SCoPEx research team recently updated the SCoPEx Research Plan to reflect the most current experiment plans. Both the original and new version can be found on the Scientific Review Page of our website.

The changes made to the document are as follows:

  1. Introduction – noted the newest National Academies recommendations for small scale field experiments
  2. 3.4 Limitations of Naturally Occurring Analogs – cited more recent events that are relevant to convective systems in the stratosphere
  3. 3.1 SCoPEx Platform – notes the platform design is influenced by Frank’s work with the NASA DCOTSS project
  4. 3.2 Unreactive Alternative SAI Materials – verified in the lab that diamond triggers the minimal possible response in the stratosphere4.3.3.2 Chemical Properties – cites a recent study by Dai et.al about calcium carbonate