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The CLIVAR Africa Study Group were tasked by the WCRP with developing
a
comprehensive blueprint for scientific research to improve our understanding
of African
climate variability and its prediction. The augural meeting was held
in Abidjan 7-9 May
1998, between the PRESAO West African Climate Prediction Forum, and
the SARCOF,
Southern African Forum. A number of scientific papers were presented
by panel members,
consisting of international and regional experts. Informal, brain-storming
workshops were
conducted on the second and third day to develop the key scientific
questions and
justifiable recommendations for further work. A common question was:
how does the global
circulation modulate seasonal rainfall in North/West, Central/East
and Southern Africa,
and the adjacent Mascarene islands. The panel recognised that enhanced
monitoring
efforts in the tropical Atlantic and Indian Oceans near Africa would
enable sea
temperature prediction leading to a better understanding of teleconnections.
Mark Jury is
tasked with integration of the panel document. Thematic science contributions
will be led
by Yves Tourre, Neil Ward and Wassila Thiaw. Considerable work remains
to collate the
ideas of panel members to obtain a high quality implementation plan
which will be used to
gain international support for additional observations, analysis and
modelling work
required to better predict the climate of Africa.
The CLIVAR Africa panel envisioned three emerging themes: