28th Conference on Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

The 28th Conference on Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, sponsored by the American Meteorological Society and organized by the AMS Committee on Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, will be held 28 April–May 2 2008 in Orlando, Florida. The conference will be held concurrently with the 18th Conference on Atmospheric BioGeosciences (formerly known as 18th Conference on Biometeorology and Aerobiology) and the 28th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology Conference, convening at the Wyndham Orlando Resort, 8001 International Drive, Orlando, Florida 32819. Several joint sessions are planned. Please submit your abstract electronically via the AMS website by 1 December 2007.         Preliminary programs and registration details will be posted on the AMS website in late-December 2007. General information on hotel accommodations is already available on the AMS website.
      Papers are solicited on all aspects of agricultural and forest meteorology and its relation to global change. Specific topics of interest include methods of improving ecosystem carbon balance measurements, data analysis, and interpretation at different scales; the coupling of biophysical and boundary-layer models to mesoscale models; data assimilation applied to modeling carbon sources and sinks inside canopies; surface-atmosphere exchange using Large-Eddy Simulation, higher-order closure modeling, and Lagrangian stochastic simulations; potential impacts of biofuel feedstock production on land-climate interactions; evapotranspiration in wetland and riparian systems; use of remote sensing in water management applications, and integration of remotely-sensed and weather forecast data with crop simulations.
      The program will include several exciting sessions focused on recent advances in agricultural and forest meteorology. Special sessions will address advances in monitoring the impact of extreme climatic events and severe weather on tropical agriculture and forestry, as well as innovative measurement methods and instrumentation such as scintillometry and lidars applied to surface-exchange observations. Additional suggestions for the program and panel discussions are welcome and should be directed to the Program Chair (Mleclerc@uga.edu; tel: 770-228-7279).
      There will also be a joint session planned with the 28th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology on the relationships between agriculture and tropical intraseasonal/interannual atmospheric variability.
      In addition, there will be a special session honoring Professor John M. Norman's long and exceptional career in the field of environmental biophysics.
      Presentations will be either oral or poster. Awards will be given to students for the best papers and posters. In order to be considered for the competition, students should indicate their intent to participate in this competition when they submit their abstract. A new fee structure has been put in place for the 2008 conference. The $90 abstract fee now includes the abstract submission, posting of the extended abstract, and the uploading and recording of the presentation. The latter will be archived on the AMS website. An abstract fee (payable by credit card or purchase order) is charged at the time of submission (refundable only if abstract is not accepted). Authors of accepted presentations will be notified via e-mail by late-December 2007. Instructions for formatting extended abstracts will be posted on the AMS website. Extended manuscripts (file size up to 3 MB) must be submitted electronically by 15 April 2008. All abstracts, extended abstracts, and presentations will be made available on the AMS website.
      For further information, please contact the program chairperson: Monique Y. Leclerc, Lab for Environmental Physics, The University of Georgia, 1109 Experiment St., Griffin, GA 30223; www.biometeorology.uga.edu; tel: 770 228 7279; fax: 770 228 7305 (fax); e-mail: Mleclerc@uga.edu. (11/07)