It was agreed by all participants of the workshop on the Implementation of Climate Watch Systems (CWS) in Offenbach, Germany 2010 to establish a CWS in RA VI as an element of an Early Warning System. The "Workshop on the implementation of a Climate Watch System in RA-VI in the context of GFCS" at the European Conference for Applied Climatology (http://www.ems2012.eu/home.html) in Lodz, Poland in September 2012 was a follow up to the one in Offenbach 2010.

A CWS is an operational cooperative system for climate early warning based on existing meteorological facilities and infrastructure at regional and national level. It involves user in its design, operation and evaluation. A CWS builds on existing weather early warning systems by adding advisories on climate extreme events. We would like to encourage long-range forecast providers, RCCs, participants of the last workshop, users, climatologists and observational data owners to consider the participation to establish a partnership and collaboration for the future.

This side event will be focused on the implementation of a CWS in a National Meteorological Service with the support of the RCC in RA VI.

We would like to kindly invite all interested participants of the conference to participate in this side event and we would like to ask you to confirm your participation due to the limited size of the meeting room. If you need further information, do not hesitate to contact us: wcdmp@wmo.int