International Council for Science (ICSU) President Elect (2014-2017) Prof. Gordon McBean and International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) SG Prof. Alik Ismail-Zadeh visited IAP on 4 Nov, 2011. Prof. McBean gave a seminar titled “the importance of early warning systems in disaster risk reduction” and Prof. Ismail-Zadeh gave a seminar titled“Data Assimilation in Geodynamic Models”. After the seminars, a discussion was held and attended by some IAP scientists and officials from China Association for Science and Technology. ICSU Executive Board member Dr. Guoxiong Wu chaired the discussion.
IAP Deputy Director Dr. Jiang Zhu introduced the research of IAP and the international projects IAP scientists are involved in. LASG director Dr. Riyu Lu introduced the development of LASG, in particular, the modeling and dynamics research. The SG of China National Committee(CNC) for IUGG Dr. Jianping Li and LASG deputy director Dr. Zhenghui Xie were also present.
Prof. McBean first visited IAP in 1985 and he was impressed by what IAP and LASG have achieved since 1985. He was particularly interested in IAP’s research on disastrous climate research and prediction and hoped IAP can be actively involved in the ICSU project “Integrated Research on Disaster Risk” (IRDR) and the new key initiative “Earth Sustainable System Research” (ESSI). ICSU will want to work with Chinese Academy of Sciences continuatively and scientists should stress to our government collectively and establish early warning systems.
CNC-IUGG Secretary General, Jianping Li, presented Ismail-Zadeh the Newsletters of CNC-IUGG and Chinese Version of IUGG E-Journals (2009-2011). It is an impressive collection of data on IUGG and Union Associations translated into Chinese. Ismail-Zadeh highly recognized CNC-IUGG’s efforts in promoting IUGG’s profile in China. He also expressed thanks to CAST and the host institute IAP for their invaluable support to CNC-IUGG. Ismail-Zadeh stressed IUGG’s support to integrated science education, and he encouraged IAP and CNC-IUGG to initiate science education activities related to integrated research. Particularly he mentioned that China can play an active role in advanced summer schools in the southeastern Asian region on topics of a common interest not only to atmospheric scientists, but also to hydrologists, oceanographers and even solid earth physicists (e.g. data assimilation, climate and natural hazards research), so that young scientists and students can be more broadly educated and can improve their global understanding of complex natural processes.
On behalf of IAP, Prof. Guoxiong Wu concluded the discussion and expressed IAP scientists’ full support to ICSU and IUGG.
The visit enhanced the communication between IAP scientists and ICSU and IUGG executive board/committee and broadened IAP’s perspective on international cooperation.
