The United States and Canada Symposium on North American Climate Change and Weather Extremes was convened in Atlanta during October 1999. This three day meeting was convened in Atlanta by the Climate Institute under the joint sponsorship of the Canadian Climate Programme, the US National Climate Program, Environment Canada, US Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The meeting pulled together climate modelers, computer experts, climate impacts specialists, and those involved in response strategies such as emergency preparedness officials and insurance industry representatives to discuss what we know about likely changes in frequency of extreme weather events in North America should the climate warm as anticipated. A major focus of the discussions was how to fill in the gaps in our understanding of likely changes in occurrence and severity of extreme weather events and how to strengthen research efforts in both the US and Canada to provide decision makers a better grasp of likely future extreme weather occurrences.

Besides the US and Canadian representatives, the Symposium acquired a truly North American character with the participation of one Mexican representative, Luis Roberto Acosta, Director of Sistema Internacional de Monitoreo Ambiental (SIMA). Acosta, who also directs Latin American programs of the Climate Institute, is now spearheading the effort to build the world’s highest altitude CO2 observatory in Perote in the State of Veracruz, Mexico. The observatory will also monitor the movement of dust particles from Africa that might affect the climate of the Western Hemisphere as well as UV radiation. On May 20, 2005 Fidel Herrera, Governor of Veracruz, announced his State’s intention to fund the construction of this observatory with construction expected to start early spring of 2006.

Meeting Results

• Research Agenda.pdf - an Adobe Acrobat file (150 KB) containing the research agenda that evolved out of the symposium.
• Proceedings.pdf - an Adobe Acrobat file (1.2 MB) containing the invited papers presented at the meeting.
• Newsletter.ppt - a PowerPoint file (10 MB) containing an article written by Nancy Wilson of the Climate Institute for the Climate Alert published in April 2000.