CLIVAR and CIIFEN will co-organise the "IV International Conference on El Niño Southern Oscillation: ENSO in a Warmer Climate" from 16-18 October 2018 in Guayaquil, Ecuador. This conference is a follow-on to the III International Conference on ENSO: “Bridging the gaps between Global ENSO Science and regional processes, extremes and impacts” held in November 2014; the Second International “Workshop on ENSO, Decadal Variability and Climate Change in South America: Trends, teleconnections and potential impacts” held in October 2010; and the First International ENSO Conference: “The El Niño phenomenon and its global impact” in May 2005, All held in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

MAIN GOAL OF THE CONFERENCE

To review the progress on the science of ENSO with a focus on examining the range of ENSO “flavors” (especially in regard to the longitudinal variations of warming), assess the existence of possible, and distinct precursors to the different flavors, an examine how the different oceanic and atmospheric processes that drive the different ENSO flavors and impact their predictability would vary in a warming world. 

OBJECTIVES

•To review the role of different physical processes that influence ENSO characteristics and the diversity of El Niño events on decadal time scales.
•To synthesize the existing ENSO evaluation methods in GCMs.
•To review ENSO evaluation protocols and strategies for coordinated ENSO analysis of CMIP models
•To update on the status of ENSO specific simulations for consideration by CMIP6 (“ENSOMIP”).
•To discuss new observations needed to better constrain ENSO processes, both for the current climate and for past climates (via paleo proxies and TPOS).
•To update on the understanding of how ENSO might change in the future
•To update our understanding of global ENSO teleconnection patterns and related impacts.
•To review the global and regional challenges of ENSO prediction and climate information services.

PROGRAM

The IV International Conference on ENSO will be organized in 6 plenary sessions, related poster sessions and an International Exhibition. The specialized sessions will emphasize the following topics:

I. ENSO observations, including analysis of recent events
II. ENSO dynamics
III.ENSO and other modes of climate variability (intraseasonal, decadal, centennial)
IV. ENSO modeling and prediction
V. ENSO impacts and Regional processes
VI. Climate Information and sustainable development and future of climate and ocean science

Poster sessions will be organized corresponding to each plenary session.

CLIMATE SERVICES STAGE

The CLIMATE SERVICES stage is a special venue where selected ENSO Conference participants are allowed (10-15) minutes to present a climate services related   topic, project or initiative. Its aim is to widen the array of topics that are discussed at the Conference beyond those that are presented in the main specialized sessions.

The CLIMATE SERVICES stage will be presented all the days of the Conference between 12h30-14h00 in a special location in the exhibition room. All the presentations will be recorded and posted in a special site for wider dissemination. The topics for each day are:

Day 1 (12h30-14h00):  Climate services for agriculture, food security, health and water.
Day2  (12h30-14h00):  Climate services for risk management and adaptation
Day 3 (12h30-14h00):  Climate services for decision makers and authorities

Additionally, the INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION “CLIMATE & SOCIETY”  will be organized to allow different Weather & Climate centers, science and technology institutions, the private sector, environmental NGOs and agencies to promote their activities, products and services.

VENUE

The Conference will be held in the Auditorium of Department of Electrical Engineering at the Gustavo Galindo Campus of Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral (ESPOL) in Guayaquil, Ecuador

The ESPOL Campus is ranked in the top 100 in the UI GreenMetric World University Ranking (http://greenmetric.ui.ac.id/what-is-greenmetric/) which considers aspects such as: setting and infrastructure, energy and climate change, waste, water, and transportation.

ESPOL is the Number one University in Ecuador, and 74th in Latin America (http://www.4icu.org/top-universities-latin-america/).