PROMISE coordination Julia Slingo, Emily Black, Franco Molteni

Activities over the past year Brochure: 8 page brochure shortly to be distributed widely within the user and scientific community and used to promote the forthcoming conference Web site: revised and updated and also pushed up the search engines (now receives over 200 unique hits a month) Preparations for the international conference: finalised plans to have the meeting at ICTP, applied widely for sponsorship

Web site Development over the next year: Update the detailed sections about the PROMISE partners, publications and research highlights based on the second annual report, add powerpoint presentations and abstracts from this meeting Use the web site as the main tool for promoting the international conference (section already there) Create a section for statistical software tools – already got the CNRM package. Others will be added as they become available

International PROMISE conference Monsoon environments: Agricultural and hydrological impacts of seasonal variability and climate change 24 th – 28 th March 2003 ICTP in Trieste currently sponsored by EU PROMISE, ICTP, WCRP, START/CLIMAG

Monsoon environments: Agricultural and hydrological impacts of seasonal variability and climate change Conference topics The impacts of anthropogenic climate change on hydrology, agriculture and natural vegetation in monsoon-affected countries Seasonal predictability of monsoon climates and the management of water resources and agriculture Data provision for scientists from monsoon-affected countries using the PROMISE data archive as an example. Use of seasonal forecasts as an operational tool Applications of crop and hydrological model output to decision-making processes in developing countries Future of integrated climate/impacts modelling

Monsoon environments: Agricultural and hydrological impacts of seasonal variability and climate change Planned sessions 1.Seasonal predictability and natural variability of monsoon climates 2.Assessment of future monsoon climates in response to anthropogenic climate change 3.Sensitivity of monsoon variability to land-surface processes 4.Agricultural impacts of climate change 5.Hydrological impacts of climate change 6.Bringing together scientists and end users

Monsoon environments: Agricultural and hydrological impacts of seasonal variability and climate change Participants PROMISE partners Representatives from aid agencies Climate scientists from developing countries Policy makers / people involved with long term planning European and American scientists working on PROMISE-related topics

Monsoon environments: Agricultural and hydrological impacts of seasonal variability and climate change Sponsorship We aim to provide at least 40 scholarships for people who could not otherwise attend the meeting. Progress so far with raising sponsorship: Definitely… ICTP, PROMISE, WCRP Possibly… FAO, START/CLIMAG Also LEAD and several CGIAR centres have expressed interest in the meeting although they will not be able to provide sponsorship