1999 Articles

IRI-CR/99/1: Applications of Climate Forecasting to Agriculture. A Report from a Regional Training Course. Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. February 1 - 19, 1999

Tourre, Y.

The IRI regional training course on Applications of Climate Forecasting to Agriculture, was held at the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) Conference Center, in Toowoomba, Australia between 1 February and 19 February 1999. The course was organized by the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) in collaboration with the Queensland Center for Climate Applications (QCCA), NOAA/OGP, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) and co-sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The objectives of the IRI training course were:
- to expose professionals of the climate and agriculture sectors from Australasia to state-of-the–art climate and agriculture science, climate and agriculture monitoring and seasonal-to-interannual climate predictions;
- to explore the linkages and physical mechanisms which involve climate variability, crop yields and livestock management;
- to evaluate the applications of seasonal climate prediction to preparedness and decision-making processes in the agricultural sector;
- to provide a cross-fertilization, exchange of ideas, expertise and analytical tools between climate and agricultural researchers from other countries and continents.

I would like to thank the members of the Australian organizing committee for their continued assistance. Special thanks to Graeme Hammer, Holger Meinke, Ms. Mackey Vogler, Greg McLean and the QCCA team for their logistic support and close collaboration. Thanks also to Ann Binder for keeping all the financial details on track, and to Antonio Moura for his guidance in overall planning.

Yves M. Tourre
Director, IRI Training program