World Climate Research Programme Open Science Conference Gilbert Brunet WWRP/JSC Chair

1. World Climate Research ProgrammeOpen Science Conference Gilbert BrunetWWRP/JSC Chair CAS MG meeting, 15-17 November 2011 Madrid,Spain

2. WCRP Open Science Conference 24-28 October 2011 Denver, Colorado, USA http://conference2011.wcrp-climate.org Promoting, Facilitating and Coordinating Climate Research in Service to Society

3. WCRP Open Science Conference • Assembly of WCRP affiliated researchers and partners (~1900 participants) • Exclusive opportunity for exchange and collaboration across diverse research communities (e.g., WCRP, WWRP, IGBP, IHDP, …) working to advance understanding and prediction of climate variability and change across scales • The Conference has: • Appraise current state of climate science ( IPCC AR5) • Identify most urgent scientific issues and research • challenges • Ascertain how WCRP can best facilitate research and • develop partnerships critical for progress • Facilitate growth of future, diverse workforce http://conference2011.wcrp-climate.org

4. WCRP Open Science Conference • International Scientific Committee • Jim Hurrell, Chair, NCAR, USA • Ghassem Asrar, WCRP, Switzerland • Sandrine Bony, LMD/IPSL, France • Tony Busalacchi, ESSIC/U. Md, USA • Christian Jakob, Monash U., Australia • Rik Leemans, ESSP Chair, Netherlands • Jerry Meehl, NCAR, USA • Terry Nakajima, U. Tokyo, Japan • Carlos Nobre, IGBP Chair, Brazil • Ted Shepherd, Univ. Toronto, Canada • Julia Slingo, MetOffice, UK • Koni Steffen, Univ. Colorado, USA • Kevin Trenberth, NCAR, USA • Carolina Vera, Univ. Buenos Aires, Argentina • Martin Visbeck, IFM-GEOMAR, Germany http://conference2011.wcrp-climate.org

5. WCRP Open Science Conference • 1900+ registered participants of which: • 300 students • 200 early career scientis of which 250 are sponsored • 2100 abstracts submitted • 190 oral presentations, // sessions • 20 plenary presentations • 84 countries represented

6. Some WCRP OSC highlights • Although the focus was on climate change, seamless weather-climate connections were emphasized throughout; • WWRP has participated in many of the WCRP programs that were highlighted, such as GEWEX, CLIVAR and SPARC; • Jarraud spoke of many exemplary weather-climate collaborations such as GARP, GATE, FGGE, CGOS and JCOMM.

7. Some WCRP OSC highlights • Jarraud stressed that users need concrete information for services and decision support systems related to the frequency and severity of extreme events and the associated risks; • Jakob, co-chair of the WMO Working Group on Numerical Experimentation (WGNE), pointed out that numerical weather prediction has effectively revolutionized the world by producing a sustained one day per decade rate of improvement in the accuracy of weather forecasts, but this has gone largely unnoticed.

8. Some WCRP OSC highlights • Jacob advocated in concordance with WWRP (a?) major coordinated international model development project (s?) with associated super-computer facilities to help catch up with the accelerating need for accurate earth system information for weather and climate in a changing environment; • The links between weather and climate time scales were also discussed through examples of high impact weather events and their attribution to a changing climate.

9. Some WCRP OSC highlights • Numerous presentations were made by users who need weather and climate information for applications in water supply, food supply, insurance, health, economics, energy, and security; • Some panellists expressed frustration with all the talk of uncertainty, together with acknowledging the need for better education on probabilistic products emphasizing likelihoods rather than uncertainty.

10. Session B1Prediction from sub-seasonal to multi-decadal scales (conveners: D. Anderson, G. Brunet, B. Kirtman, I.-S. Kang)

11. Main findings • Weather to Sub-seasonal to Decadal is the foundation for seamless prediction; • Some prediction skill at subseasonal-seasonal-interannual and decadal scales; • Land surface initialization can improve skill; • Tropical SST trends: observed patterns are poorly simulated in coupled models, AMIP simulations agree with climate response; • Predictive skill increased under specific regimes and not others.

12. WCRP Research andEmerging Challenges Gaps • Multi-models ensembles and stochastic parameterization; • Prediction of changes in tropical SST; • Prediction metrics; • Decadal prediction building on CMIP5; • Need for better initialization schemes for coupled atmosphere-ocean; • A better understanding of the modulation of high-impact weather by the low frequency variability; • Importance to understand the mid-latitude and tropical interactions.

13. Conclusions (1/2) • Urgent need for actionable climate information based on sound science; • “actionable science” emerged as the mantra; • Environment/climate related issues and concerns that the public and decision makers are facing are complex and require trans-disciplinary approach to address them.

14. Conclusions (2/2) • The need for “symbiotic” relationship between providers and users of climate information to ensure ‘actionable’ climate information is developed and used effectively: timely, accessible, easy to understand; • Urgent need for training and development of next generation of scientists and decision makers who pursue and promote the use of actionable climate/environmental information. • What is the role of the NMHSs?

15. Thank you for your attention! http://www.wcrp-climate.org