The 8th International Training Workshop on Climate Variability and Predictions, held in Ankara, Turkey, from the 25 to 29 April, focused on the 2015/16 El Niño event and addressed a wide range of related topics. The Workshop updated the 70 participants on the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and other modes of climate variability in order to reinforce the concepts and tools for seasonal to interannual climate forecasting and to analyze how to communicate this information to the public.
The Workshop addressed ENSO teleconnections and regional impacts, the influence of the current El Niño on the climate of different regions, communications and country preparedness for El Niño impacts, and hands-on operational seasonal forecasting. In a training session, participants working in regional teams combined their station data and ran several prediction experiments, including the downscaling of the National Multi-model Ensemble (NMME) and learned how to interpret the results. The teams also discussed El Niño preparedness in their respective countries.
The Workshop also provided an opportunity to showcase climate services in different parts of the world to enable participants to learn from one another. Selected country presentations provided insights into how meteorological services work with their communities to enable decision-making in agriculture, water resource management and health. The challenges and opportunities were discussed.
Meteorologists, climate scientists and managers from 45 countries – all continents – attended the Workshop, which was hosted by the Turkish State Meteorological Service (TSMS) and led by the Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Lecturers were drawn from the experts in various government and international agencies. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funded the Workshop through the U.S. National Weather Service, and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). Additional funding came from WMO.
