The kick-off meeting of China-Norway project “East Asia DecCen” was held October 13th-14th 2009 in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP). The co-leading-scientists are Prof. Tore Furevik from Norway and Prof. Huijun Wang from China. More than thirty researchers, including Prof. Eystein Jansen, Yongqi Gao, Atle Nesje, Meixue Yang, Odd Helge Otteraa, Jurgen Bader, Haijun Yang, Shuanglin Li, Nils Gunnar Kvamstoe, attended the meeting.

　　Prof. Huijun Wang, leading scientist from China, director of IAP, hosted the opening ceremony. He addressed that “East Asia DecCen” was an important project applied jointly by Bejerknes Centre for Climate Research (BCCR) and Nansen-Zhu International Research Centre (NZC). This project focuses on the decadal to century variability of East Asian climate, which can attract more international attention to China, having remarkable significance for studies on climate change in China. Additionally, some young scientists and graduate students also join this project, which is a good opportunity for their training via cooperating with foreign experts.

　　Prof. Tore Furevik, leading scientist from Norway, introduced the project briefly, Then principal investigator of each module reported their research plans and the corresponding research progress, including the topics, such as East Asian paleoclimate proxy data reconstruction and analyses, paleoclimate simulation in recent 1,000 years, climate effects of Arctic sea-ice melting, the effect of decadal variation of sea surface temperature and atmospheric teleconnection on East Asian climate etc. Finally, Prof. Eystein Jansen introduced the IPCC fifth assessment report and its linkage with this project.

　　“East Asia DecCen” is hosted by IAP and Bejerknes Centre for Climate Research in Norway, and jointly participated by the Institute of Geography in Norway, Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre in Norway, Institute of Atmospheric Research in Norway, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, and Peking University. The project aims to make contribution to researches on climate change and projection in China. With the proxy and observational data, the project will analyze the past and present climate change features in China, and explore the processes influencing the changes in temperature, precipitation and related disasters like floods and droughts.