FEWS NET Science Team Meeting
June 13-15, 2023 — University of Colorado, Boulder

University of Colorado, Boulder and the Flatirons in the background

The purpose of the FEWS NET Science Meeting, held in Boulder, Colorado, is to periodically bring together representatives of the organizations who collectively perform FEWS NET's agroclimatological monitoring, forecasting, and reporting. These include USGS, NOAA, NASA, USDA, UCSB, and UMD.  Representatives of the USAID, Early Warning, and Hub teams also participate.  The meeting helps these organizations maintain a shared understanding and appreciation for FEWS NET's routine practices while providing an update on special activities that lead to improvements in those practices.  This is achieved through regional reports and technical presentations that cover new developments in modeling, monitoring data, and analytical tools. 

The delivered presentations are available below, organized by the day and time.

Table of Contents

Day 1 - Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Introductions

9:30 a.m. Overview of Partners and Processes J. Verdin

9:50 a.m. Seasonal Forecast Review: Evolution and Future A. Hoell

10:05 a.m. Crop Monitor Process and Updates (remote) B. Barker, K. Mobley

Regional Reports

10:50 a.m. Regional Report: Latin America and the Caribbean M. Rodriguez

11:10 a.m. Regional Report: East Africa G. Galu

11:30 a.m. Regional Report: Southern Africa T. Magadzire

11:50 a.m. Regional Report: West Africa A. Adoum

12:10 p.m. Regional Report: Central Asia F. Zaheer

Early Warning Team Training

1:30 p.m. Overview of the Early Warning Team’s Work V. Roy

2:30 p.m. Deeper Dive into Agroclimatology Assumptions L. Walters

3:30 p.m. Current and Future Work with the Science Team T. Hoffine

Day 2 - Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Yield Modeling

8:35 a.m. CHIRPS 3.0 Beta and Loss Exceedance Curves (remote) H. Jayanthi

8:50 a.m. Crop Data and EO-based In-season Forecasts D. Lee, F. Davenport

9:05 a.m. Climate Impact Forecasting at Sub-seasonal Scale S. Shukla, W. Turner

9:20 a.m. Yield Models: GEOCIIF & VeRCYe (remote) R. Sahajpal, Y. Sadeh

9:50 a.m. Crop production database W. Anderson, D. Lee

10:35 a.m. Yield Intercomparison Proposal (remote) I. Becker-Reshef

Extended Outlooks and Experimental Forecast

11:00 a.m. Experimental Multiyear Forecasts M. Newman

11:15 a.m. Climate Mode Yield Forecasts W. Anderson, S. Shukla

11:45 a.m. Forecast Communication Options W. Anderson

Regional Predictability Studies

1:30 p.m. Attribution and Prediction of East Africa Rains C. Funk

1:45 p.m. Multiyear Droughts in Southern Africa A. Hoell

2:00 p.m. West African Monsoon Onset Variability and Prediction W. Agyakwah

2:15 p.m. Sub-seasonal Precipitation Forecasts over Southwest Asia M. Breeden

2:30 p.m. Understanding Influence of ENSO Droughts in Afghanistan S. Shukla

Techniques of Forecasting

3:30 p.m. Exploring Opportunities for Earlier Drought Prediction L. Harrison

3:45 p.m. Hybrid prediction system for monthly/seasonal precip forecasts N. Acharya

4:00 p.m. Identifying precursors to improve ENSO forecasting K. Toride

4:15 p.m. Machine Learning Bias Correction Methods for GEFS E. Bhuiyan

4:30 p.m. Systematic ENSO-Related Seasonal Forecast Errors J. Beverly

Day 3 - Thursday, April 15, 2023

Monitoring Data

8:35 a.m. Daily Reference ET and Evaporative Demand Drought Index M. Hobbins

8:50 a.m. CHIRPS 3 and CHIMES Precipitation Datasets C. Funk

9:05 a.m. MODIS to VIIRS NDVI Transition M. Budde

9:20 a.m. SSEBop V6 Actual Evapotranspiration (ETa) G. Parrish

9:35 a.m. Enhancing Meteorological Networks Partnership G. Galu

Hydrology

10:40 a.m. Enhanced Flood Monitoring and Forecasting – Return Periods S. Pervez

10:55 a.m. FLDAS Central Asia Hydrologic Modeling Updates K. Slinski

11:10 a.m. FLDAS-2 Global Hydrologic Modeling Updates D. Sarmiento

11:25 a.m. FLDAS-Forecasts of Hydrologic Conditions in Africa (remote) A. Hazra

11:40 a.m. Rangeland Water Points New Methods Updates (remote) S. Yatheendradas

Analytical Tools

1:30 p.m. FEWS NET Data Explorer and Data Visualization D. English

1:50 p.m. Evaluation of New Early Warning Explorer (EWX) Features and Web Enhancements M. Anthony

2:10 p.m. GeoTools Updates / SMPG and Ethiopia Monitoring Report D. Pedreros