Cosponsor(s):

Indian Institute for Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Ministry of Earth Sciences - Pune, India; International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) - Denmark; National Natural Science Foundation of China, NSFC; Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Interactions (COLA) - USA

Start Time:

30 July 2012 at 08:30

Ends On:

10 August 2012

Location:

Trieste - Italy

Venue:

AGH (Kastler Lecture Hall)

Organizer(s):

J. Shukla, E. Sarachik, J.M.Wallace, F. Kucharski (and Local Organiser)

Description:

Activity Secretariat:
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
Ms. Lisa Iannitti
Strada Costiera 11 
I-34151 Trieste
Italy
email: iannitti@ictp.it
 Telephone: +39-040-2240227

smr2356@ictp.it

SPECIAL EVENT within the framework of the TTA:

Workshop on "Framing Climate Change Discussions on the Looming Environmental Crisis and Sustainability"
August 6-7


During the last TTA in August 2009, ICTP in collaboration with the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) launched the South Asian Seasonal Climate Outlook Forum (SASCOF). Most of the Directors-General of national meteorological services in the south Asian countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) came to ICTP. It is an important outcome of continuous efforts through the TTAs which have been encouraging collaborative work among the groups in the region.

The seasonal climate of tropical region is heavily influenced by atmosphere-ocean coupled processes. In particular, the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most influential phenomenon and the major source of global seasonal predictability. Most of empirical seasonal prediction methods, which are common in the developing countries, primarily rely on the influence of ENSO on the regional climate variability such as monsoon. Thus, the robust relationship between ENSO and regional climate is a necessary condition for the successful seasonal prediction in the developing countries.

In recent years, however, some El Nino events with different characteristics such as position of SST anomaly and developing timescale have been recognized. The changes of ENSO characteristics might be caused by the global climate change because the variability of ENSO is sensitive to some background parameters. In addition, the changes in ENSO can lead secondary change in its influence on the global climate. The recent weakening of traditional ENSO-south Asian monsoon relationship partly reflects the impact of changes of ENSO variability and its covariability with other ocean basins. Since many seasonal predictions in the developing countries are based on the ENSO, the usefulness of the seasonal prediction system can be questionable if such changes in the ENSO will be kept as the background climate is changing in the future. Therefore, for those who utilize ENSO based seasonal prediction, how the ENSO will change in the changing climate? would be a timely question and the how the impact of ENSO (Primarily focused on the ENSO-monsoon relationship) will change? is a natural question to follow. In 2011 TTA, these questions will be explored with following aims:

•Theoretical understanding of variability and predictability of ENSO in current climate system
•Understanding of possible changes of ENSO in the future climate
•Review of ENSO-Monsoon relationship and its secular changes
•Assessment of regional influence of ENSO

Programme

1st week: Lectures on the ENSO dynamics in the current and future climate with computer lab. session.
2nd week: Lectures on the ENSO-Monsoon relationship and predictability with computer lab. session.

Material:

• Programme (PDF )
• General_Information_Sheet
• Planet_under_Pressure_Website
• Prog_NEWAug.1
• State_of_Planet_Declaration
• TTAs_Updated_Info_2004__12
• UNESCO-ESDvideoclips
• Workshop_August_6_7