Seasonal, decadal and centennial predictability of polar climate: a pan-WCRP workshop initiated by SPARC and CliC

The WCRP will organize a workshop entitled:"Seasonal, decadal and centennial predictability of polar climate: a pan-WCRP workshop initiated by SPARC and CliC". The idea is to have a broad but focused exchange of views on what may be predictable in the pol ar climate system on the range of time scales from season to years, decades and up to a century due to interactions of various components of the climate system and teleconnections. Workshop sessions will encompass couplings and mechanisms for predictabi lity in polar regions from a phenomena- and process-oriented perspective, drawing on observations, models, basic physical principles, and theoretical analysis. The event will review long-term changes in the climate system including forced anthropogenic an d natural variability as well as unforced variability, plausible mechanisms of the variability and their predictable components, and the ability of the modern observing systems to provide meaningful initial conditions for climate models with predictive sk ill. From discussion of the climate system, the workshop will move to imagining what prototype polar prediction systems might look like. This will result in proposing programmatic next steps aimed at research efforts on the development and implementation of such systems both within and outside the WCRP. Participation to the workshop will be by invitation only and the experts will be identified by a Scientific Organizing Committee composed of most authoritative scientists in several domains of climate re search. We are expecting about 80 participants. WCRP would like to hold the workshop in Bergen, Norway. The choice of venue is dictated by the wish to engage more fully the leading Norwegian scientists in polar climate and is also based on recognition of the achievements of the Bergen School of Meteorology. Funding for travel and subsistence will be provided by WCRP. The Research Council of Norway and the local host are asked to support local arrangements.