1. NOAA Pan American Climate Studies Objective: To extend the scope and improve the skill of operational seasonal-to-interannual climate prediction over the Americas tao.atmos.washington.edu/pacs

2. Objectives: better understanding and more realistic simulation of: boundary forcing of seasonal-to-interannual climate variations over the Americas the evolution of tropical sea surface temperature anomalies the seasonally varying mean climate over the Americas and adjacent ocean regions, the structure of the ITCZ/cold tongue complex the relevant land surface processes.

3. PI’s with L.A./Caribbean projects For abstracts and more PI’s see www.cdc.noaa.gov/ ~ajr/abstracts.html Dave Enfield, AOML Brant Liebmann (Univ of Colo.) and Jose Marengo (BR) Art Douglas: Mexican Monsoon Mike Douglas, met obs in S. Am. www.nssl.noaa.gov/ projects/pacs/ www.nssl.noaa.gov/ projects/pacs/ Roberto Mechoso (UCLA) coupled modeling Julia Nogues-Paegle (Utah) -- S. Am. low level jet

4. More LAm/Caribbean PACS projects Hugo Berbery (AR, at UMD) monsoon diagnostics Henry Diaz (CDC), paleoclimate, hurricanes, and health Vern Kousky, NCEP, variability of the SAM Anji Seth, IRI, ppt in S.Am Rong Fu (AZ) modelling of ppt in S.Am. Ben Kirtman (COLA) modeling of the SAM David Neelin, UCLA, dynamics of drought in S.Am during ENSO

5. CLIVAR/VAMOS Variability of the American Monsoon Systems International science coordination mechanism Focus on the monsoon systems in order to capitalise on major heat sources that shape the global atmospheric circulation.

6. VAMOS Major objectives to describe, understand, and model the mean and seasonal aspects of the American monsoon systems, to investigate their predictability and to make predictions to a feasible extent, to prepare products in view of meeting societal needs

7. VAMOS Focus rainfall and the probability of occurrence of significant weather events such as tropical storms and temperature extremes includes associated perturbations in the planetary, synoptic and mesoscale flow patterns including those in the winter hemisphere. region of interest covers both the tropical and the extratropical Americas and surrounding oceans.

8. VAMOS Science Panel Roberto Mechoso (chair) UCLA, USA; Victor Magaña (vice-chair), UNAM, Mexico Tony Busalacchi, NASA, USA; Steve Esbensen, Oregon State Univ, USA H. Fuenzalida, Univ. de Chile, Santiago Vern Kousky, NOAA/CPC, USA Antonio Moura, IRI, USA; Joel Picaut, NASA, USA Jim Shuttleworth,UnivArizona, USA Pedro da Silva Dias, USP, Brazil Carolina Vera, CIMA, UBA, Argentina Mike Wallace, Univ. of Washington, USA

9. VAMOS Working groups Process Studies (Bob Weller) Data (Victor Magaña) Sustained Measurements (Vern Kousky) Stratus Working Group (Bruce Albrecht) South American Monsoon (Pedro Silva Dias and Julia Paegle, co-chairs)

10. Workshop on VAMOS and PACS Field Programmes São Paulo, BR on March 30-April 2, 1998 Develop plans field work to be done as part of VAMOS Co-ordinate monsoon research programmes by the nations in the Americas 60 participants from 10 countries. For report and programs descriptions see www.clivar.ucar.edu/vamos_rep_toc.html