18 November 2008: The Workshop on Climate Change Impacts and
Adaptation to Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries at the National and Regional
Levels, jointly co-organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO),
the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Southeast Climate Consortium
(SECC) of the US, opened on 18 November 2008 in Orlando, Florida, US, and will
conclude on 21 November.

The workshop is being organized in conjunction with
the meeting of the WMO Implementation/Coordination Team on Climate
Change/Variability and Natural Disasters in Agriculture (WMO Agricultural
Meteorology Programme). It aims to bring together experts in the area of
climate change impacts and adaptation for agriculture, forestry and fisheries.
Workshop participants will present state-of-the-art papers on real world
applications and innovative techniques for climate change adaptation and
develop recommendations for producing and using weather and climate information
for planning and implementing effective climate change adaptation strategies at
the national and regional levels.
Specific objectives of the workshop include:
characterizing the contributions of climate change and climate variability to
risks in the management of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries; appraisal and
reporting on current capabilities in the analysis of climate change and
variability specifically as they relate to and affect agriculture, forestry,
and fisheries at the national and regional levels; reviewing the status of
climate change scenarios and research on climate variability at the national
level and summarizing them at a regional scale to support the formulation of
adaptation strategies for agricultural areas; reviewing the information and
decision aids based on the use of seasonal climate forecasts, historical
climate data and other climate analyses that help decision-makers identify
management options to reduce risk and increase profits, identify deficiencies
in applications of long-range predictions for agriculture and make
recommendations for improving the technology for the benefit of agriculture at
the national and regional levels; and developing recommendations on the
partnerships needed to build socially equitable extension and outreach
programmes for farmers, forest and fisheries managers, and policy makers to
enhance users’ familiarity with the new seasonal climate forecasts and decision
aids, and to provide mechanisms for users to give feedback to researchers.
Proceedings of the workshop will be published by the WMO, USDA and SECC and
widely distributed to promote wider applications of climate change adaptation
strategies in agriculture, forestry and fisheries. [Workshop
Website] [WMO
Agricultural Meteorology Programme]