A Quarterly Publication
Issue 10/July 1998
The ENSO Signal provides updates on follow-on activities and serves as a medium of dialogue on issues stemming from the International Forum on Forecasting El Niño: Launching an International Research Institute, held 6-8 November 1995 in Washington, DC
The WMO and Its Focus on El
Niño by The World Meteorological Organization (WMO)-
Climate Information and Prediction Services (CLIPS) Project
Office
The 1997/98 El Niño event catapulted in status to become one of the strongest events on record. Over the past year, it quickly generated widespread public and governmental concern, and rapidly became the dominant thrust of many of the climate services activities of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). As a result, National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) around the world experienced greatly accelerated requests for information and forecasts to support the decision-making that affects many aspects of human activity. This was especially true for those countries where climate extremes contributed to loss of life and significant economic and environmental impacts.
In order to deal with the great demand for current and accurate information, the WMO Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, established an El Niño Task Team in the second half of 1997. WMO's Climate Information and Prediction Services (CLIPS) project office took the lead in creating several press releases and a brochure on the subject, and also added an El Niño Information page to the WMO's Home Page on the World Wide Web (http://www.wmo.ch/nino/ninoi.html).
In addition, El Niño Updates have been issued for five consecutive months, and contain the most pertinent information and predictions issued by advanced climate prediction centers. The Updates were distributed to NMHSs and posted on the WMO El Niño Web page, and briefings were conducted for the Geneva-based Media, the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Geneva-based Agencies of the United Nations (UN), the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) Secretariat, and the Environmental Network of Embassies in Geneva.
The WMO also co-sponsored a series of workshops and conferences to develop consensus climate forecasts in light of the projected evolution of the 1997/98 El Niño event. The conferences took place in Africa (Kadoma, Zimbabwe; Windhoek, Namibia; Nairobi, Kenya; and scheduled in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire; and Pretoria, South Africa); South America (Lima, Peru; Montevideo, Uruguay; and Fortaleza, Brazil); and Southeast Asia (Bangkok, Thailand; and Singapore). Many of the conferences were organized by the U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Global Programs (OGP) through partnerships with regional associations such as the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Most of these conferences were followed by workshops designed to develop pilot applications projects, and summations of those activities were usually presented to a general conference open to government representatives, international development and funding agencies, decision-makers and users, climate researchers, and providers of climate information and prediction services.
During the conferences, the unique format that was used for the climate outlooks was explained. While weather forecasts for today and tomorrow are usually given with specific information for a given place (such as, "partly cloudy with a chance of afternoon showers for the Capitol city"), climate outlooks are stated with probabilistic terms over large areas, and apply for a longer period of time. A climate outlook might pertain to a large part of a country with a single statement, such as, "For the months of May, June, and July the central and eastern parts of the country are fifty percent likely to have greater than normal precipitation; thirty percent likely to have around normal precipitation; and twenty percent likely to have below normal precipitation." This type of outlook describes what is most likely to happen, but it also shows that the variability of the climate may actually cause different, and in some cases, opposite results.
The 1997-1998 El Niño event also figured into the focus of several capacity building activities, such as a multinational CLIPS pilot project design session in Kampala, Uganda in November 1997, and a 2-week CLIPS seminar in December 1997 for ASEAN countries in Hanoi.
The WMO has been designated as the lead suborganizational component for an Inter-agency Task Force on El Niño established by the United Nations. The main responsibilities require dealing with the science and technology of understanding, observing, and predicting El Niño as well as its related meteorological and hydrological impacts. In this capacity, the WMO will conduct an evaluation of the 1997-1998 El Niño event later this year, examining the event itself and the way the meteorological community monitored and predicted it, and distributed information about it.
For further information on the WMO and its CLIPS project, please contact the CLIPS Project Office by e-mail: clips@gateway.wmo.ch or by phone: (41 22) 730 8268.
The Pacific ENSO Applications Center - A Regional Pilot Project in the Tropical Pacific Islands by Lt. Alan C. Hilton, NOAA Pacific ENSO Applications Center
The Pacific El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Application Center (PEAC) is a pilot-project established to conduct research, produce information products, and perform outreach and education activities in response to ENSO-related climate variability in the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI).
The high correlation of climatic impacts related to the ENSO cycle and the potential for applications of climate forecast information in the tropical Pacific islands was first considered during a meeting of natural and social scientists, federal and local government agency officials, and private sector representatives in October 1992. This Workshop on Pacific ENSO Applications, held in Honolulu, Hawaii provided the impetus for a pilot project in the Pacific region to provide an early "test-of-concept" for organizational structures envisioned under the International Research Institute (IRI) for climate prediction initiative. The Pacific ENSO Applications Center (PEAC) was subsequently initiated with NOAA support in August 1994.
Because of its organizational linkages and experience in the region, the PEAC was well positioned to provide policy-makers with useful forecast information in advance of and throughout the 1997-98 ENSO event. This afforded regional, national and local decision-makers an opportunity to take early actions to reduce the impact of anticipated drought conditions.
Project Organization
The regional focus of the PEAC project is the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI), including American Flag jurisdictions, as well as Freely Associated States (former U.S. Trust Territories) of the tropical Pacific. The PEAC organizational network was structured to include institutions with unique functions and capabilities in the USAPI region that could best serve the requirements for a regional climate research, prediction, and information system. Such a mix was determined to ideally involve organizations with regional experience in academic research, operational responsibilities and expertise in forecasting activities, and access to local government agencies and industries involved in climate-sensitive sectors. The resulting network of organizations and area of geographic focus for PEAC are depicted in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Institutions forming the core of the PEAC organization include:
Key areas of research, information product development, and education/outreach activities were designed to address the needs of climate-sensitive sectors such as water resources, fisheries, agriculture, civil defense, energy, and others of economic and environmental importance to USAPI communities. Project structure, shown in Figure 2, was inspired by the IRI conceptual framework and adapted to the roles of institutions comprising the PEAC.
Figure 2: Pacific ENSO Application Center (PEAC) Project Organization
Accomplishments
Several areas of project accomplishments which have been made since the establishment of the PEAC include:
¥ development of regional models for island-specific seasonal rainfall prediction, in cooperation with the NOAA/NCEP Climate Prediction Center in Washington D.C.;
¥ publication of a regional atlas on seasonal rainfall climatology and ENSO-related variability, for 66 locations in the tropical Pacific region, also in cooperation with NCEP/CPC;
¥ information products and communications systems development, including the quarterly project newsletter Pacific ENSO Update and the internet web site at <http://naulu.soest.hawaii.edu/>.
For the purposes of this article, additional details are offered on three particular points:
¥ On-island site visits and regional meetings. Multi-sector workshops on ENSO and briefings for government and industry officials involved in specific climate-sensitive sectors were a direct and extremely effective technique for identifying potential users and applications of climate information in the various island communities. Site visits laid important groundwork by helping to establish a capacity for more effective use of routine distributions of information on ENSO and climate predictions relevant to the region provided through other project activities. Aside from site visits, participation in meetings of important regional organizations in the wider international community of the tropical Pacific served to initiate a community of interest not only in PEAC, but also in initiatives like IRI and WMO-CLIPS and the potential for enhanced regional activities.
¥ Expanded support base for PEAC project and related research. Under the IRI program concept was the anticipation for regional networks of applications-oriented entities to eventually attract a broadened base of support from institutions and organizations within the served community. While the PEAC project core functions were originally supported exclusively by grants from NOAA-OGP, the project has since attracted a larger share of support from other agencies, relieving OGP of its initial level of support and leveraging project accomplishments from the original NOAA "investment".
Much of this has been accomplished through the development of an effective working relationship with the National Weather Service, both on regional and national levels. This cooperation with the agency responsible for operational forecasting in the region is viewed as a vitally important factor in the eventual success of projects such as PEAC. The viability of PEAC has also encouraged development of more targeted applications research now underway in health and fisheries sectors of importance to the region. Further broadening of the support base is anticipated in cooperation with other interested agencies, organizations, and programmatic initiatives.
¥ 1997-1998 ENSO: The PEAC Role. Initial distribution of forecast information on climate variability for the event was first made through the project newsletter Pacific ENSO Update in early 1997, with continued updates in subsequent issues. Renewed funding allowed project staff in Guam and Hawaii to follow up with a round of site visits to all the Freely Associated States and the U.S. Territories in the region between September 1997 and January 1998. Nearly every island jurisdiction established a local government task force to cope with serious drought - the primary consequence anticipated due to El Niño. On a community level, efforts of those groups have made a difference, primarily in communicating the fact that the drought was not a "fluke" that could end at any time, but rather a part of a much wider scale phenomena that is highly predictable in the Pacific Islands region.
Task force efforts have resulted in mitigation measures that have alleviated, within the capacity of local government resources and external assistance, the seriousness of the drought and its impact on the islands. An assortment of information on impacts and local government responses (along with those in neighboring island countries of the Pacific islands region) is made available in the local island news section of the PEAC web site <http://naulu.soest.hawaii.edu/>, or by contacting project personnel directly.
PEAC project work remains a highly valued resource within the tropical Pacific islands region and has contributed to the anticipation of a more fully developed global network of similar activities in association with IRI and WMO-CLIPS. In the meantime, PEAC is actively engaged in further development of operational activities, research, and applications projects following the 1997/98 El Niño event which caused widespread, record drought to affect many island areas of the region.
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The PEAC Research and Applications Divisions are directed (respectively) by Dr. Thomas Schroeder, University of Hawaii (UH) Department of Meteorology and Dr. Michael Hamnett, PBDC Senior Policy Analyst. Zhiping "Chip" Yu, a graduate of the IRICP Pilot Project Training Program at Lamont-Doherty, served as a Research Assistant to the project and Lt. Alan C. Hilton, an officer in the NOAA Commissioned Corps, was assigned from NOAA-OGP to assist in Applications Division work. A PEAC project office was initially set up at NWS-PR Headquarters in Honolulu, HI and subsequently moved to permanent quarters at the University of Hawaii. A second project center was located on Guam under the direction of USAF Lt. Col. (ret.) Charles "Chip" Guard, former director of the USN/USAF Joint Typhoon Warning Center and a faculty member of UOG/WERI. The centers in Honolulu and Guam actively coordinated project research and public information/outreach activities, enhancing the regional character of the PEAC. |
Asian Pacific Applications Activities: Summary of the Asian Regional Meeting on El Niño Related Crises by John W. Barrett, AFSM, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC)
As many nations have witnessed over the last several months, an ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) event has caused disruption of the ocean-atmospheric system in the tropical Pacific. This periodic warming of surface waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean has significant influence on global weather patterns which in turn impact populations and economies around the world. Some of these consequences include: increased rainfall (and resulting floods); droughts; reduced number but increased intensity of typhoons; and secondary impacts such as adverse effects on the coastal ecosystems, wild fire, bush fires etc. There is an evergrowing realization that these linkages need to be better understood and that policy and decision-makers, as well as the general public, need to be informed and equipped to make timely use of research findings.
Late in 1997, the current El Niño event, one of the most significant of the century, brought into focus the urgent need to better understand this climate phenomenon and its impacts on different sectors of society. As the event developed, the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) took the initiative to host an Asian Regional Meeting on El Niño Related Crises. The event, sponsored by the United States Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) was held in Bangkok, Thailand from February 2-6, 1998. The primary focus of the meeting was to discuss capability enhancement in forecasting and applications of El Niño generated weather patterns, regionally and internationally, both in the short and long terms, as well as early warning, impact assessment, public education and information, and contingency planning.
This very successful meeting attracted 130 delegates from 21 countries including those of the Asia and Pacific regions, and received worldwide media coverage. It brought together national policy and decision-makers (from various sectors including: public health and population welfare; industry and economy; natural resources and environment; and industry and economy), regional and international climate scientist and organizations, disaster managers from regional countries, representatives from the international humanitarian assistance community, bilateral and multilateral donors, the Asian Development Bank, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and regional media representatives.
The magnitude of the 1997-98 El Niño event and the severity of its impacts have brought international attention to two issues. First, the international meteorological community is now able to forecast El Niño and La Niña (an abnormal cooling of the tropical Pacific waters) occurrences with far greater reliability. Second, with such climate forecasts there exists a potential to prepare contingency plans to mitigate the foreseeable adverse impacts. The strong participation at the meetings by regional governments representing a diverse cross section of concerned agencies attests to the importance attached to El Niño and the crises created by it. The meeting also provided a crucial interface between the meteorologists and the national agencies charged with responding to crises caused by significant disruptions to normal climatic cycles from events like El Niño. They also highlighted the fact that these climatic events tend to magnify human mistakes associated with a lack of planning.
This meeting, which facilitated an exchange between professionals, helped crystallize the potentials and limitations in forecasting such events. It showed that great strides have been made in forecasting ENSO events (with six to nine months horizons), but also indicated that the correlation between ENSO events and changes in the normal climate cycles varies significantly among countries in the region. It further highlighted the need for additional study of the impact that temperature fluctuations in the Indian Ocean may have on the weather patterns and rainfall for south and southeast Asia. Discussions focused on current constraints in getting information to potential users, both in a timely manner and in a format which can be understood and acted upon.
Participants also focused on the importance of long-lead forecasts in alleviating social and economic costs related to climate variations, and the need for political and financial support to establish an integrated regional climate information system. The need for regional cooperation and its long-term benefits to the Asian community was also emphasized. Based on recommendations of the meeting, a number of follow-up actions are being envisaged including: facilitation of a Regional Climate Forum and establishment of a Regional Strategic Planning Committee; establishment of a Pilot Regional Information Clearing House at ADPC as an operational instrument of the above two fora; and development of a long-term multi-institutional program on "Regional Capacity Building for Climate Forecasting and Applications."
Any queries pertaining to the Asian Regional Meeting on El Niño Related Crises and its follow-up actions may be addressed to either:
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Greater Horn of Africa Regional Climate Outlook Forum by Macol Stewart
In response to the devastating impacts of El Niño-related flooding in eastern Africa, the Greater Horn of Africa Regional Climate Outlook Forum met in Nairobi, Kenya, 9-13 February 1998 to develop a regional climate outlook for the March to May period and to assess its implications for regional food security and mitigation planning. The Forum succeeded in bringing together more than 140 climate scientists and food security experts from ten countries in the Greater Horn of Africa region (Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Somalia, Sudan), along with international experts from other African countries, the International Research Institute (IRI) for climate prediction, the United States, and Europe.
Together these experts dispelled rumors of an impending drought, indicating that risks of widespread dry conditions in the region were low. However, they cautioned that the food security situation in the region remains precarious due in part to poor harvests in early 1997 and excessive rains late in the year. The Outlook Forum which was funded by USAID's (U.S. Agency for International Development) Greater Horn of Africa Initiative marked another important step in the collaboration between the climate forecasting and food security communities.
In addition to arriving at a consensus forecast, participants at the Outlook Forum explored ways to use climate forecasts to improve food security in the coming months and in the longer-term. Both climatologists and food security specialists found the direct interaction from this multidisciplinary encounter valuable: climatologists learned more about tailoring their products to meet the needs of the food security community in the Greater Horn of Africa, and food security specialists learned more about what climatology has to offer and how this information might be integrated into disaster mitigation planning.
The IRI played a key role in the process of building a consensus forecast for the region, a role which they have played repeatedly in similar fora held in Asia, the Americas, and other regions of Africa. The Outlook Forum methodology was pioneered in southern Africa at the IRI co-sponsored Southern Africa Regional Climate Outlook Forum (SARCOF) held 18-19 December 1997. Since its inception in southern Africa, Outlook Fora have been replicated in eight other regions. African scientists have been pro-active in promoting regional activities, and follow-up fora are planned for southern Africa, West Africa and the Greater Horn of Africa region.
The consensus outlook for the Greater Horn of Africa and other regions can be viewed through the internet at http://www.ogp.noaa.gov/enso/africa.html; this web site also provides information on upcoming Outlook Fora in Africa. For further information on applying climate forecasts for disaster mitigation in the Greater Horn of Africa see the USAID Famine Early Warning System's March 1998 Bulletin at http://www.info.usaid.gov/fews/fews.html.
¥ The International Research Institute for climate prediction is looking for an articulate, highly motivated, Associate Research Scientist to assist the Director of the Climate Monitoring and Dissemination (CMD) Division in the development and implementation of the IRI's Climate Information System (CIS). The CIS will be the IRI's principal mechanism for the dissemination of global and regional climate information and forecasts to a broad user community.
The development of the CIS will emphasize presentation of up-to-date climate information tailored to provide the maximum understanding and usefulness for a variety of applications. The tasks are at the cutting edge of climate analysis, climate monitoring, climate prediction, and climate applications research. The successful candidate will be expected to: (1) develop and routinely update state-of-the art climate analyses tailored for specific user communities, (2) regularly provide authoritative written and oral statements describing current climate anomalies and their expected evolution and (3) provide interpretations of IRI forecast products to a wide user base.
The successful candidate will have a Ph.D. degree in the ocean or atmospheric sciences, in addition to: 1) a strong interest in current climate; 2) a well grounded understanding of the climate system and its modes of variability; 3) a good understanding of state-of-the-art climate prediction techniques and 4) a strong desire and ability to share this knowledge with a diverse group of users. Excellent communication and fluency in English and excellent interpersonal skills are required. FORTRAN and/or C, programming experience in various UNIX-shells, a must. Fluency in languages in addition to English is desirable.
The successful candidate will work closely with the Director of the CMD Division and with a small group of scientists involved in related tasks. The CMD Division of the IRI is located at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), in Palisades, New York, on the west bank of the Hudson River about 10 miles north of New York City. By late 1999 the IRI will be housed in a new 27,000 sq. ft. building on the LDEO campus.
Qualified candidates for positions at LDEO should send a statement of current research activities and interests, a full curriculum vitae, salary history, and names/contact information of three references to:
We act affirmatively toward equal employment opportunity.
Applications will be accepted until August 31, 1998 or until the position is filled.
¥ The 4th International Symposium on Environmental Geotechnology and Global Sustainable Development will be held in Boston, Massachusetts USA from 9-12 August 1998. Several sessions will be held covering scientific and engineering issues, along with policy advances in several cross-disciplinary geoenvironmental areas such as waste utilization, natural hazards, environmental impact assessment, mining and environment, oil pollution control, geohydrology, site remediation techniques, site characterization, and monitoring. For further information, contact Dr. Vincent Ogunro at Tel: (508)934-3185; Fax: (508)934-4014; e-mail: ogunrov@woods.uml.edu
¥ The Second International Conference on Climate and Water will be held in Espoo, Finland, 17-20 August 1998. The objective of the conference is to review developments in the following areas: (1) uncertainties of climate change, (2) impact of climate variability and change, (3) beneficial impacts and losses for water resources and water management as a result of climate change, (4) research on water policy/policy options and (5) education and training, adaptation of technologies, technology transfer, and innovations. Those interested in participating are requested to pre-register. For more information, contact Risto Lemmela, HUT/Water Resources Eng., Huhtatie 12, 04300 Tuusula, Finland. Tel: (358)9-275-3835; fax: (358)9-451-3827; e-mail: rlemmela@ahti.hut.fi -- Web: http://ahti.hut.fi/wr/caw2
¥ As a part of the Climatic Research Unit's 25th Anniversary celebration, the 2nd International Climate and History Conference: Past and Present Variability: A Context for the Future is being held on 7-11 September 1998 in Norwich, UK. The three main themes for the conference will be climate variability over the last few millennia, human adjustments, and context for the future. The conference is expected to be of a broad interdisciplinary nature with a strong complement of historians, climate scientists, and other related disciplines. For more information, contact Susan Boland, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia,Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK. Tel: (44)1603-456161; Fax: (44)1603-507784; e-mail:s.boland@uea.ac.uk
¥ ECAC '98 - 2nd European Conference on Applied Climatology will be held in Vienna, Austria from 22-25 September 1998. The conference is designed to provide a platform for the interdisciplinary exchange of information on climate and climate prediction. The goal is to enable the user community to make informed decisions in support of sustainable development and protection of the environment. Themes of the conference include: climate data and information; regional and temporal variability of European climate; applications of climate modeling, climate prediction and projection. For more information, contact Zentralanstalt fur Meteorologie und Geodynamik, Postfach 342, A-1191 Wien, Austria. Tel: (43)1-36-0- 26-2201; Fax: (43)1 36-0-26-2672; E-mail: ecac@zamg.ac.at; Web: http://www.zamg.ac.at/~ECAC98
¥ An international conference on Water Resources Variability in Africa During the XXth Century will be held in Abidjan, Ivory Coast from 16-19 November 1998.Topics will include (1) variability of A African rainfall regimes, (2) variability of African flow regimes, (3) modification of flow factors (in particular the "rainfall runoff" relationship) in connection with rainfall and runoff variability in Africa, (4) connections between water resources variability and human activities, and (5) ecohydrology in a context of water resources variability. For more information, contact Sharon Nicholson, Dept. of Meteorology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306 USA. Tel: (904) 644- 4022; fax: (904) 644-9642.
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