scostep 2010 (stp12) - Leibniz-Institut für Atmosphärenphysik an der ...

STP12 Abstracts
Berlin, 12 - 16 July 2010
SCOSTEP Symposium 2010
Learning from Karin for Five Solar Cycles
Geller Marvin
Stony Brook University
The year was 1960, and a young girl named Karin Behr wrote her Diploma thesis on the
newly discovered phenomenon of the sudden stratospheric warming, with her advisor being
Professor Scherhag, who wrote the first paper on this subject. Little did the world know that
Karin Behr would go on (under her married name, Karin Labitzke) to be such an important
contributor to middle atmospheric science, solar-terrestrial physics, and to SCOSTEP over the
next five decades, hence the title of this talk. For several years, her research generally
continued to be related to stratospheric warmings, and her work soon evolved to studies of the
mutual interaction of the troposphere and stratosphere during periods of stratospheric
warmings, now a subject of great current interest. By the 1970s, Karin was recognized as a
leading authority on the meteorology of the stratosphere and mesosphere. In 1980, she
published her first paper relating to solar influences on the atmosphere (with Adolf Ebel), and
in 1987, she published her famous paper that separated solar influences on the middle
atmosphere according to the phase of the quasi-biennial oscillation. This paper, along with her
very important work with Harry van Loon, continues to exert great influence on the direction
of research on solar influences on climate. Karin’s science has been closely related to that of
SCOSTEP, and Karin has been an active participant in several of SCOSTEP’s major
programs MAP (Middle Atmosphere Program), STEP (Solar-Terrestrial Energy Program, and
CAWSES (Climate and Weather of the Sun-Earth System). In this talk, I will enlarge on all of
these themes.