Wednesday 26 November 2008

Joint WMO-SECC Conference, Orlando, Florida



I'm just back from a fascinating joint conference in sunny Florida.

This was a joint meeting between the US South East Climate Consortium (SECC is a group of universities and parties interested in helping agriculture adapt to climate change), and a World Meterological Organisation Implementation/Coordination Team (WMO ICT). The WMO ICT is focused on how climate change and variability could impact natural disasters in agriculture, fisheries and forestry.

SECC is a great model of working with the industry to provide quality scientific advice and information -see for example their AgroClimate webpage

There were some excellent keynote talks and posters covering climate science capabilities, key impacts findings, and outreach and decision support. There was also a fascinating visit to the Citrus Research and Education Centre. Citrus growers in Florida face a different water quality challenge to many farmers in the UK - the soils are >90% sand and as a result, nitrogen is almost completely supplied by fertiliser. This means that protecting groundwater from leaching is a key priority.

Proceedings will be published as a USDA special report in the near future.

Weblinks:
Conference

WMO ICT

SECC

Citrus research and education centre

No comments: