Dear ICSHMO Stakeholders,
We understand the concerns surrounding adverse environmental impacts due to international travel. However, there is no substitute for academics to grow their networks, meet potential collaborators, and engage with leading experts than in-person conference participation. Conferences are also an important career, and personal, development opportunity for students and early-career professionals. Therefore, the meeting will not be fully hybrid and only offer open access viewing for the plenary sessions.
We ask for your understanding and support in this, and hope to see you in Cape Town!
Recent extreme weather and climate events, exemplified by the recent devastating floods in KwaZulu Natal and some areas of Eastern Cape facing the possibility of running out of water due to a multiyear drought, respectively, highlight the importance for South Africa to invest in developing capacity in weather and climate variability and change as well as oceanographic research. According to the scientific literature, the frequency at which these extreme events occur is likely to increase, thus rendering society and the economy more and more vulnerable to them.
Changes in the atmosphere due to human activities present the multifaceted problem of global change, wherein their impacts are multi-sectoral, which when addressed, national and international collaboration is a critical success factor. One way of establishing these international collaborations and networks is to expose South African earth science globally. International conferences are an important and effective mechanism which could be exploited to achieve this. One such conference is the International Conference on Southern Hemisphere Meteorology and Oceanography (ICSHMO).
The ICSHMO series began in the early 1980s and for 40 years has provided a unique venue for discussion of the atmospheric and oceanic science of the Southern Hemisphere. All things south of the Equator are topics for discussion at ICSHMO meetings: oceans, ice, weather, climate, advances in science and technology, human interactions with the environment, and reflections on the history of the science. The ICSHMO conferences bring together a special family of researchers from across the Southern Hemisphere and beyond and are held every three years. The conference is hosted by different countries in the southern hemisphere and the last time it was hosted on the African continent was during the year 1997.