11th Climate prediction applications science workshop

The 11th annual climate prediction applications science workshop (CPASW) will convene in Logan, Utah, and focus on “Climate Information for Natural Resource Management.” This theme will integrate broad aspects of climate information applications in water, land, forest, wildlife, habitat, energy, and other natural resources management. Climate is a cross-cutting concern for all of these areas and provides a link for critical decisions of planning, allocating resources, sustaining development and management as well as preserving natural habitats, and building resilient communities. Assessing the current state of climate information applications and sharing perspectives among a wide range of natural resource stakeholders and workshop participants is a principal motivation for this year’s CPASW.

The goals of 2013 CPASW are to build a community of climate practitioners, discover user needs, assess impacts of climate forecasts on environmental-societal interactions, identify the science potential for meeting these needs, and provide feedback to producers on the usability of existing climate products.

The meeting format will include presentations and interactive sessions addressing the meeting goals. The workshop focus will include examples of applications of hydro-climate predictions ranging from short-term (e.g., two-week to seasonal/annual) to long term (e.g., decadal and multi-decadal projections). Targeted users include natural resource managers from multiple sectors; for example, land, water, agriculture, forests, fish & wildlife. The workshop will highlight climate information use in special-purpose programs such as fire risk reduction, species recovery, ecosystem restoration, and flood and drought responses.