Source: School of Environmental Science and Engineering
Written by: Department of Environmental Science
Translated by: Hu Xiaoming, Wang Tongmei
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

The Open Science Conference (OSC) of the Asian Monsoon Years 2007-2012 (AMY) was held on 26-27 October 2013 in Zhuhai, China. The AMY-OSC was hosted by Sun Yat-sen University, and jointly organized by South China Sea Institute of Oceanography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tokyo Metropolitan University. More than 100 scientists from China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong), USA, Japan, South Korea, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia attended the conference. The objectives of the meeting were to (a) review the accomplishments of AMY in the past 5 years, (b) promote the sharing of observation and model results, (c) discuss and finalize the implementation plan of the AMY and (d) provide an opportunity for broad monsoon research community to enhance recent advances.
The AMY is an international collaborative research program initiated by Chinese scientists. The long-term goal of AMY is to improve Asian monsoon prediction for societal benefits through coordinated efforts to improve our understanding of Asian monsoon variability and predictability. Since 2007, the AMY has made great progress in ocean-atmosphere-land observation, research in heavy rainfall and typhoons, data sharing, assembling, quality controlling and assimilation, modeling and prediction.

Prof. Song Yang of Sun Yat-sen University, co-chair of the Local Organizing Committee of AMY, chaired the opening ceremony. The co-chairs of the Scientific Organizing Committee of AMY, Prof. Guoxiong Wu, Prof. Bin Wang and Prof. Jun Matsumoto, addressed the opening ceremony.

Subsequent sessions focused on: (a) multi-scale interaction (from diurnal cycle to intraseasonal variations), (b) atmosphere-ocean-land interaction and interannual variation and prediction of the Asian monsoon, and (c) monsoon-aerosol interaction. The conference featured 35 invited and contributed talks and 30 selected posters. More than 20 scientists made invited presentations, including Prof. Peter J. Webster, president of Atmospheric Sciences Section of the American Geophysical Union, Prof. Guoxiong Wu, Prof. Yihui Ding, Prof. Bin Wang, Prof. Jun Matsumoto and Prof. Song Yang.

Monsoon experts listened to the reports on the accomplishments of AMY, identified the specific guidelines in the next phase and developed workable proposals for data assimilation and management. Given that AMY has entered the phase of re-analysis data, which is one of the most important activities to coordinate all AMY participating projects, the Scientific Organizing Committee of AMY decided to extend the AMY to the end of 2014.

The conference comprehensively displayed the accomplishments of AMY, promoted Asian monsoon research, gained high recognition, strengthened cooperation in meteorological field, and played a positive role in enhancing China’s research capabilities in the field of global climate change and international influence. The conference also provided an opportunity for graduate students of Sun Yat-sen University and others to participate in high-level international academic activities.