Sciences for projecting future climate are entering a new era triggered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fifth Assessment Report (AR5). Scientists are now realizing the necessity of being more collaborative than ever across different disciplines in order to disseminate information including societal impacts of climate change estimated based on simulation data. Such recognition has indeed been reflected in the experimental design of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase (CMIP5), which embarked upon several novel attempts such as decadal predictions and estimation of compatible carbon emission resulting in centric contributions to IPCC AR5.

Developing and improving global climate models (GCMs) and Earth system models (ESMs), which are primary tools for climate change projection, are undoubtedly important and have to be continuous. In order to provide scientists from both USA and Japan an opportunity to exchange ideas for confronting and overcoming the above turning point, "Joint US-Japan Workshop on Climate Change and Variability" is to be held in Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), UC San Diego, on 21-22 March, 2015. The purpose of the workshop is to discuss latest scientific progress in understanding climate change and variability in the past and the future. This includes a wide area of issues on natural climate variability such as ENSO, PDO/IPO, AMV, as well as mechanisms of human induced climate changes. Attribution of the past observed weather/climate phenomena is also an important topic.

The workshop is co-organized by SIO and the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute (AORI), based on their Strategic Partnership initiated in 1988, between UC San Diego and the University of Tokyo. The Japan side of the organizers has been sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) through SOUSEI program. This workshop was first planned as a series of the annual SOUSEI international workshop, called Climate2016 (see Climate2014 and Climate2013 for references).

Workshop photo:

Invited speakers:

• Clara Deser (NCAR)
• Robert Pincus (NOAA/University of Colorado)
• Michael Wehner (LBNL, UC Berkeley)
• Xiaosong Yang (GFDL)
• Mark Zelinka (LLNL)

Meeting conveners:

• Masahiro Watanabe (AORI, UT)
• Shang-Ping Xie (SIO, UCSD)
• Masahide Kimoto (AORI, UT)