ET-AAS Member Bios

Leader

imageJames Ali Ijampy Adamu

James Ijampy Adamu is the Chief Agricultural Meteorologist of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency. He is the team Lead of the Seasonal Climate Prediction also the Focal Point for the WMO METAGRI project in Nigeria. He is engaged in the integration of Climate Services to agricultural activity, Climate change adaptation in Agriculture and the downscaling of Seasonal Climate Outlook to rural communities. In striving to improve relationships and connections between meteorologist, users and decision-makers, Mr. Adamu is also part of the Multi-disciplinary Working Group (MWG) in Nigeria, a core member of the Food Security Cluster of Nigeria and the West Africa Seasonal Climate Outlook PRESASS and PRESAGG. 

Mr. James Ali Ijampy ADAMU has trained over 75,000 rural farmers and agricultural extension agents in his career in Nigeria, mainly in areas of the application of weather and climate information in climate risk management in agriculture.

Co-leader

Hatem Baccour

 

 

Core members

photoIsack Yonah  

Mr. Isack Baliyendeza Yonah is an experienced meteorologist for more than 30 years, working with Tanzania Meteorological Authority (TMA). He is currently a Principal Meteorologist and Manager Applied Meteorology under the Division of Research and Applied Meteorology. TMA is responsible for the provision of meteorological services, weather forecasts and agrometeorological outlooks, climate services, warnings, advisories, research and consultations.  Mr. Isack Yonah spends much of his time in application of meteorological, crop, soil, and remote sensed vegetation and rainfall data to quantify the impacts of weather and climate on agriculture and livestock and issues early warning advisories to the community about crop, pasture and livestock conditions. Having a very good background and knowledge in meteorology/climatology and agricultural sciences, he has been involved in a number of research activities, linked mainly with meteorology and agriculture; remote sensing in agriculture, promoting integration of indigenous knowledge and scientific weather and climate forecasting as a way of managing risk under a changing climate. He has also been interacting with farming communities in Tanzania through roving seminars.

photoKathryn Reardon-Smith

Kathryn has over 20 years’ professional and community experience as an environmental educator, practitioner and research scientist. She is based at the Centre for Applied Climate Sciences at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia, where she is involved in research into sustainable land and water management, climate risk management and agri-ecology. She is currently involved in major projects which aim to support improved climate-risk decision-making and sustainable natural resource management in agricultural landscapes in south east Asia and across northern Australia.

photoZhiquiang Gong 

Prof. Zhiqiang Gong is the director of the climate division of China Meteorological Administration (CMA), mainly engages in climate prediction field. He has developed the dynamics - analogue combined method for seasonal climate prediction. China’s summer precipitation prediction was delivered by using this scheme from 2009 to 2017 and achieved the prediction anomaly correlation coefficient as 0.17. Zhiqiang had been seconded to WMO from Oct. 2014 to Sep. 2016 and efficiently performed GFCS officer's regular function, including but not confined to preparing materials or documents for daily operations of GFCS Office, using of the prediction tool of FODAS in summer 2016 climate outlook of Bhutan, coordinating the development of the WMO brochure "Using Climate Predictions to manage Risks". As a climate expert Zhiqiang also completed the book《Climate System Network and Application》and published more than 100 scientific research articles in various pre-reviewed journalsin terms of "Climate Dynamics", "Weather and Forecasting".

Olga Bereza 

 

Roberto De Ruyver

 

Arlene Aaron-Morrison 

 

Catrina Johnson 

 

 

Associated member

photoShibo Fang 

Dr. Shibo Fang is a professor of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (CAMS), China Meteorological Administration (CMA). He is leading a remote sensing and agrometeorology team in CMA. Fang is well known for his agriculture remote sensing and agriculture response to climate change expertise, organizational ability, and program leadership. In recent 10 years, he worked on agriculture remote sensing, and mainly focused on developing satellite remote sensing tools to get the land surface soil moisture to monitor the drought and water-logging stresses and disasters of terrestrial ecosystem. Shibo collaborates in several international studies, such as funds of UK STFC Newton Fund and China NSFC, UK Newton Fund, and NSFC China - ISTP Canada, focused on improving and inter-comparing agricultural tools for crops health and agrometeorological disasters.