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Project Leader	Dr. Michael MANTON & Dr. Neville NICHOLLS Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre (BMRC) GPO Box 1289K, Melbourne VIC 3001 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61-3-9669-4444 Fax: +61-3-9669-4660 Email: m.manton@bom.gov.au
Funding	US $48,000
Participating countries	Australia, China, Fiji, French Polynesia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Vietnam

A participant from each of the listed countries was funded by APN.  A further eleven participants from BMRC, the National Climate Centre, and CSIRO Atmospheric Research in Australia were self-funded.  There were two participants from New Zealand, one of whom was also self-funded.

Introduction/Background
The importance of monitoring and analysing climate extremes has been highlighted by the last two assessment reports of the IPCC. Over the last few years, there has been increased research in developed countries aimed at improving the analysis of climate extremes. However, the national and regional trends in climate extremes are of interest to all countries, and this APN project aims first to enhance the capacity of participating countries to monitor and analyse their own data and secondly to enable national trends to be put into a regional context.

The project involved the third of a series of Workshops on Climate Extremes in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, which was held at the Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Australia, 18-20 April 2001. Previous APN Workshops had been held in December 1998 and December 1999.  The 1999 Workshop led to the publication of a paper describing trends in extremes over Southeast Asia and the South Pacific over the past forty years (Manton et al., 2001).  The aims of the Third Workshop were to update the data and analyses conducted in the Second Workshop, to apply new software for analysing and monitoring climate extremes, and to exchange new information and software related to climate extremes.

Outline of activities conducted
The key activity of the project was the three-day workshop held in Melbourne in April 2001.  The workshop was hosted and supported by the BMRC, and it involved participants from seventeen countries.  Much of the first morning was spent exchanging information about relevant recent meetings on climate extremes and variability.  The earlier APN workshops provided a catalyst for the convening of workshops in other regions of the world.  The results of these workshops, in the Caribbean and in Africa, were discussed.

Progress in analysing daily rainfall and temperature data since the 1999 APN Workshop was discussed, and it was noted that nearly all countries had updated their data.  The updated data led to a few changes in trends at a small number of stations.  However, the trends detected in 1999 have generally been maintained.  The remainder of the first day of the workshop was spent on presentations on metadata, the development of drought indices, and a project to digitise early Australian climate data. The second day was spent on country presentations of their continuing work on climate extremes.  Many countries have analysed data from additional stations to the initial five or six used in the 1999 analysis.  The remainder of the day was devoted to participants testing the ClimDex software, developed by USA NCDC and used in the workshops in the Caribbean and Africa. The third day commenced with presentations on the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC, with a focus on observed climate change and on predicted changes.  There were also presentations on quality control software and on ways to use the Internet for climate research.  There was a final discussion on plans and priorities for future regional work on climate extremes.

Following the workshop, a web page for the APN Network for Climate Extremes was established at <http://www.bom.gov.au/bmrc/csr/apn>. The web page contains documents and software from the three APN workshops, as well as some results of the analyses.

Outcomes/Products
The products from the project include:
- CDROM provided to each participant containing selected presentations from the workshop and software for analysing climate data for extreme events (ClimDex and MASH)
- updated analysis of national data on climate extremes, carried out by individual participants
- updated regional analysis of climate extremes, providing a regional context for national analyses
- a web page at <http://www.bom.gov.au/bmrc/csr/apn> of products from the APN workshops
The outcomes of the workshop include:
- maintenance of the APN profile in the international scientific community
- strengthened regional links through collaborative work across seventeen countries
- enhanced understanding of climate in the Asia Pacific region

Future directions/Follow-up work
It is proposed that further workshops should be held approximately annually to maintain the network of scientists focused on the analysis of climate extremes, to provide updated software for the analysis of climate extremes, and to update the regional analyses of climate extremes.  The highest priority activity for the future was seen by the participants in the third workshop to be enhanced work on the digitisation and analysis of historical pressure, rainfall and temperature data.