The Action Group on Tropical Antarctic Teleconnections (TATE) aims to promote international collaboration, enhance coordination, and encourage participation in improving our current understanding of the mechanisms of tropical-Antarctic teleconnections. It is distinct from, but complementary to, the AntClim21 Scientific Research Programme in that it is concerned with the processes linking the tropics to Antarctica, which are not well understood yet are key to the future trajectory of Antarctic climate. AntClim21 is a much broader effort that emphasizes coupled climate modelling for the 21^st century.

The goals of the TATE AG are to:

1. increase discussion and collaboration to explore tropical and polar weather and climate interactions, carrying out at least one interdisciplinary workshop;
2. investigate the tropical forcing of the atmospheric circulation in the present and in the recent past (the last 200 years based on proxy records such shallow ice core studies);
3. explore the air-sea ice coupled systems and their relation to weather and climate of the tropics and subtropics, including interactions with the monsoons systems;
4. conduct case studies on the relation between complex weather and climate patterns inthe South Atlantic, Indian and Pacific regions and the Southern Ocean sea ice cover, andhow they are connected to natural modes of climatic variability (e.g., ENSO, SAM, PSA,PDO) or anthropogenic-induced changes;
5. organize a session at the XXXV SCAR (Davos, 2018) exploring the tropical polar teleconnections (to be carried out together with IASC);
6. produce at least one special volume of articles on the tropical polar teleconnections.

Terms of Reference

The key objectives and terms of reference of TATE are:

• To identify the key regions and various mechanisms of connecting the tropics to Antarctica through observations, atmospheric reanalyses, and coupled global climate models.
• To understand and model the role of Antarctic sea ice with respect to tropical teleconnections.
• To promote international collaboration in creating a network of polar researchers across national boundary to share ideas and to identify the knowledge gaps so as to develop new research directions and collaborations.
• To investigate the role of deep convection on the transport of Ozone depleting substance (ODS) to polar region.
• To develop an internationally coordinated, web-accessible, database of observations, model output in relation with the tropical Antarctic teleconnection.