We often observe devastating extreme weather events in many parts of the world. Those are mostly due to climate variations such as El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole under pressure of the global environmental change. In recent years, by virtue of the development of global simulation models and earth observations, climate variations are becoming predictable six months to one year prior to the occurrence. It is also recognized that adaptive measures based on the prediction may reduce serious influences on human health as well as vast socioeconomic impacts.
The morning session of the present symposium will be addressed to recent prediction researches on climate variations originated in the subtropics as well as in the tropics. The scientific achievements and their applications in the southern African region are mostly based on the SATREPS project supported by JST and JICA. Applications of climate prediction are expanding rapidly and now covering fields such as precaution of infectious diseases and agricultural planning. We may say that the climate prediction is becoming prerequisite to design our future society. Thus the afternoon session will be devoted to "Future Earth" to be developed by the earth simulation.
