First AMMA International Conference, Dakar 2005

AMMA's First International Conference was held in Dakar, Senegal, November 28 - December 4 2005.
It included a workshop on impacts the last two days.

Group picture of the Dakar conference participants
Proceedings
Accepted abtracts
Programme with downloadable presentations
Acknowledgements

Conference outline

AMMA first international conference aimed to bring together researchers from around the world working on the WAM and its impacts, to review ongoing research activities and to discuss future contributions and directions within the AMMA research programme. It also provided the first real opportunity for establishing and coordinating collaborations at the international level, and in particular with African scientists. 

Substantial efforts were made to ensure good attendance at the conference, particularly from Africans in the region. Expectations were significantly exceeded with more than 300 abstracts received and 255 participants from 23 countries, including at least 70 Africans. This enthusiasm for AMMA is a strong endorsement for what AMMA is working to achieve.

The conference took place within the enhanced observing period (EOP) and just ahead of the AMMA special observing period (SOP) in 2006. The conference was an ideal occasion to review and discuss the plans for the observing campaign as well as the opportunities for related research activities.

AMMA activities are coordinated through 5 international working groups. These 5 research areas constituted the main themes of the conference. More on the conference themes

Download conference flyer in English or in French

Highlights of parallel working sessions

WG1: West African Monsoon and Global Climate

WG2: Water Cycle

Understanding the water cycle and its change due to natural and anthropogenic factors is critically important: Availability of water is one of the most limiting parameters for life, agriculture and economic development in the Sahel (WG4); water has a central role in monsoon dynamics and variability (WG1) and it has an important role in high impact weather forecasts (WG5). A major focus of this WG is to consider the water cycle at a range of scales, from regional to local.

Key activities that were agreed in the short term included:
o At regional scale, to improve knowledge of constraints used in water budget, specially precipitation (PRECIPAMMA group is dedicated to this issue) and surface flux observations and to produce a paper on state of (un)knowledge of water budget.
o To decrease uncertainties in how processes are represented in global/regional models through mesoscale studies.
o At the mesoscale, the main activity in the coming year will be to carry out a case study analysis on the 28 Aug - 1 Sep 05 case in the "dry forecast run"; using observations and models and interacting with the AMMA satellite database.
o At the local scale, accurate hydrological budgets are currently carried out on the AMMA super-sites. Following up to this will be an evaluation of parametrisations and mesoscale models for supporting the water budget assessments.
o An e-mail list will be established and the WG2 webpage will be developed.

WG3: Land-Surface-Atmosphere Feedbacks
WG4: Prediction of Climate Impacts
WG5: High Impact Weather Prediction and Predictability

Funding of the conference and logistical help

The International Organisation team of the conference would like to thank especially the following institutions who enabled the conference by funding participants and / or logistical help during the conference:

The AMMA-EU project (FP6 contract 004089-2) funded the participation of 15 young scientists. The fellowships were awarded to the candidates based on their excellence and with the most promising projects within AMMA. The awarded students and young post docs were involved in AMMA within one of the following institutions partners of the AMMA-EU project: CNRS (France), IRD (France and Benin), UPS (France), IGUC (Copenhaguen), AGRHYMET (Niger), Météo France (France), CNR (Italy), University of Liverpool (UK), EIER (Burkina Faso), UCM (Spain), University of Leeds (UK).

The French institutions (CNRS/INSU, CNES, IRD, Météo-France, IFREMER) participating into the funding of AMMA France allowed the participation of a large number of African colleagues in addition to the funding received from IGAC, DoE (ARM), EU (AMMA-EU), SCAC of the French Embassies Niamey, Senegal, Benin, Mali, Burkina Faso...), UNESCO/CO