FOREWORD

 

Welcome to the 15^th AMS Conference on Applied Climatology!

 

The AMS Applied Climate Committee is proud to sponsor this, our 15^th conference, and welcome you to Savannah.  We are pleased to hold this conference jointly with the 13^th Meteorological Observations and Instrumentation Symposium (SMOI), and the American Association of State Climatologists (AASC) Annual Meeting.  The combined contributions of these three groups have resulted in a collection of papers and presentations that is truly unprecedented, not only in quality of the work and breadth of topic areas, but in the common threads that link the contributions into a multi-faceted series that is stronger than the sum of its parts.  

 

The meeting is organized around two broad themes. The first is "Monitoring the Climate.”  Sessions include a joint national and international session on climate networks that includes overviews of major national and international monitoring networks, reports on an ever-growing number of state and regional mesonets, and data quality assurance and metadata.  The highlight of this theme is a panel discussion entitled “Locating Observing Stations Where It Counts: What do We Have? What are We MisssingMissing?”  Related to this topic is a session on climate trends and variability. 

 

The second broad theme for this meeting is "Applied Climatology for Decision-Making." Many management, planning and policy decisions regarding society and environment are sensitive to climate, and we are continually impressed with the ever-increasing participation of applied climatologists in a wide range of problem-oriented activities touching many parts of society.  Extending ourselves in this way is fostering increased linkages with workers in related fields who do not formally participate in applied climate activities, and with the AMS in general.  This part of the meeting is designed to attract and showcase contributions from various sectors inside and outside the traditional purview of applied climatology.  Sessions address resource management, water supply, agricultural productivity, drought and flood preparedness, air quality, health, and urban climatology.  Effective methods for the dissemination and communication of climate products and services to stakeholders are highlighted during a panel discussion entitled “Climate Services: Research, Outreach and Stakeholder Engagement.”

 

We would like to thank Bruce Baker and the AMS Committee on Meteorological Observations and Instrumentation, and David Robinson and Ken Crawford, representing the AASC, for their willingness to share their conferences with us, and for their time and energy in organizing this meeting.  We would also like to extend our sincere thanks to Cara Christensen and the other staff at the AMS for their hard work, and above all, patience, in helping put on this conference.  Without their behind-the-scenes efforts the conference simply would not happen.

 

With best regards,

 

Christopher Daly and Greg Johnson

Program Co-chairpersons                                                    

 

AMS COMMITTEE ON APPLIED CLIMATOLOGY

Christopher Daly, Chairperson

Andrea Bair, Matt Barlow, Andrew Comrie, Ann Gravier, Greg Johnson, Dev Niyogi, David Robinson, Chris Funk, Karen Tomic

 

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Greg Johnson and Christopher Daly, Co-Chairpersons

Bruce Baker, Andrew Comrie, Gregg Garfin, Dev Niyogi, David Robinson