The special fund for public welfare industry (meteorology) entitled ‘impact of key regional sea surface temperature and new methods of seasonal climate forecast’ (Grant No. GYHY200906018) was held on September 17, 2010 in Beijing. Researchers from Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Climate Center and Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences attended the meeting. Prof. Ke Fan, the principal scientist of the project organized and presided this meeting.

The project aims to deepen the understanding of the variability of summer climate in China and to develop new methods on the seasonal climate prediction. All researches represented their research work in the past one year. Prof. Huijun Wang, director-general of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, participated the meeting and presented general comments on the overall objectives and preliminary progresses of the project. He emphasized the innovation of the climate prediction theory and technique and encouraged the project members to explore new methods for climate prediction in China and to test the effectiveness in both the systematic hindcasts and real-time climate predictions. Prof. Ke Fan highlighted the project scientific achievements in 2010 and appreciated the efforts of all researches in the past year. She hopes an effective forecast model for summer rainfall in China based on the statistical and dynamical will be proposed and applied in operation before the end of the project.