Report

Future Opportunities

ADPC coordinated the Extreme Climate Event Program Peer-review Meeting in part to discuss opportunities for networking and collaboration among representatives from the three participating countries and from international and regional organizations. Each organization has a specialty that could be helpful if combined with the ongoing research and resources of other agencies and organizations. During this session, participants explored ways to take advantage of collaboration opportunities.

Presentation Highlights

The ASEAN Specialized Meteorological Centre (ASMC) conducted the first workshop on regional climate in 1998, and came up with a climate forecast for the purpose of an outlook on the haze situation for that year. Meetings are held to review the forecasts and discuss overall ENSO forecasts, with each country doing a more detailed forecast for the region. Regional climate models are not used; the forecasts are based on each country's experience and ASMC compiles them. Rainfall data are provided by each country and posted on the website to give a sense of rainfall in the region.

A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) initiative is helping ASMC develop its regional forecasting capacity, with the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) assisting in implementing its model within the next few months. The program will involve the transfer of a seasonal prediction model from IRI to ASMC, to be followed by training workshops. With this capacity, ASMC and the national meteorological services will be able to play a more useful role.

A Regional Policy Workshop on the Institutionalization of Climate Forecasting Application Systems is being planned by ADPC, given that the matter comes down to fundamental issues of governance and requires high level support, and changes in outlook, policies and programs. The broad objectives of such a workshop will be to:

• share the findings of the ECE Program, with specific opportunities for application and policy-level recommendations;
• garner support from policy-makers for follow-up programs;
• share experiences among countries; and
• prepare for the next ENSO event.

Discussion Points

ASMC has only recently begun producing forecast information, and therefore, their forecasts have not been evaluated in a systematic way. Regional climate models are on the cutting edge of research and people are still learning how to use them properly.

The initial experiences have been in relation to the problems with fires and regional haze. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Local Haze Task Force meets regularly, and briefings are conducted to inform the media of the likely impacts of the regional haze situation. They do not yet have broad experience with climate forecasting, and must work with the national agencies to improve their information systems.

Several questions emerged in the discussions about data collection and processing, and disseminating information. For regional models, is it necessary to intensify the data collection efforts, or will the same data work with fine-tuning of the global models? Is it important to consider the types and formats of the data needed to build and strengthen local models? How are the regional forecasts disseminated to the national meteorological services? How do we bring our products to the users? It is hoped that partnerships among the workshop participants will help resolve these questions.

Recommendations

Participants were excited with the possibilities for collaboration on future projects. They suggested several activities to improve communication among organizations and to provide opportunities for networking and partnerships.

• Develop a clearer idea of what is meant by forecasting "skill scores" as well as "forecast quality."
• Synchronize efforts to develop regional forecast models among the ASMC, national meteorological services and ADPC. Even though the forecast is regional, the applications are at national and even local levels. Hold a forum for sharing experiences.
• ADPC should work more closely with the national meteorological services, because they are centralized and focused, while the user community is large and widespread.
• National meteorological services, in turn, should create "users councils" that provide a usersØ voice, but the meteorological services will have to take the initiative. ADPC can have a regional influence, but it cannot do that at the national level.
• Approach trade and resource associations (e.g., water, tourism) comprising user groups to understand the impacts of climate in these communities. They often have "risk management sub-committees," and they will be interested in talking about what climate means to them.
• With overall agreement among the meeting participants, pursue the proposed idea for a Regional Policy Workshop.