1997
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Beijing, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Remote SEnsing Institute. Left: Wu Bingfang
WMO workshop in Pune, India |
1998
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Suwon, Korea. Two week WMO-FAO Roving Seminar on Crop Yield-Weather MOdelling
19980318-20, Washington, joint USDA-FAO-ISI meeting on Agricultural Statistics in the 21st century, speech on crop yield forecasting.
WMO Roving Seminar on Crop yield-weather modelling in Dar Es Salaaam. Among the participants: 1st from left, Martin Lukando; 2nd from right, second row: Tharsis Hyera. |
1999
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19990218: WMO/CAgM meeting in Accra, Ghana
19990719-30: FAO-WMO-IMD Roving Seminar on Crop Yield Weather Modelling |
2000
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Ottawa, February 2000. Meeting on terrestrial carbon observing systems |
2001
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The agromet team in FAO/Rome: Michele Bernardi, Angela Scappaticci, Fulvia Petrassi, René Gommes
Chiang Mai, Thailand |
2002
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Mohamed Nooruddin, the head of the agrometeorology section of BMD ( Bangladesh Meteorlogy Department)
Istiqlal Amien (Indonesia), FAO agrometeorologist working at BMD with Nooruddin, and a computer magician! |
2003
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MInstry of agriculture in Kabul, with Fahim Zaheer
Darussalam experimental station with Rabah Lekhal (2nf from right)
Qarga agronomic reserach station
From front left: Robina Wahaj, Martin Smith, Claudio Stockle, Lee Heng, NNN, Giovanni Munoz-Castaneda. Second row: John Annandale, Terry Howell, Gerardo van Halsema, Bruno Basso, Gerrit Hoogenboom, René Gommes, Amir Kassam, Florent Maraux, Pasquale Steduto, Ted Hsia with NN (woman?) behind him, Kees van Diepen, Tim Wheeler, Elias Fereres, Daniel Renault
First CRAM (Crop and Rangeland Monitoring) meeting in Nairobi (20 to 30 January 2003) |
2004
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Welcome dinner, meeting on climate and HIV/AIDS at Mahidol University, Thailand |
2005
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20050404: “permit” to access the airport premices in Blantyre, handwritten by the DIrector of the Malawi Meteorological Services
Dinner in Islamabad with Dr Hanif, Ronny Adhikarya (FAO representative in Pakistan) and Imran Iqbal (at the time, dIrector of SUPARCO ground station) |
2006
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Receiving the 25 years of service medal from FAO Director General Jacques Diouf on 18 January 2006 |
2007
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CRAM-II meeting in Nairobi (28 March 2007)
With Sanginboy Sanginov (left: Director,Tajik Soil Research Institute) and Sandor Szalai (Hungarian Meteorological Service) in Dushanbe, Tadjikistan
13 August 2007, with Armen Sedrakyan and Sandor Szalai at the office of the Food Security Information for Action Project in Erevan, Armenia |
2008
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World Food Day (16 October) celebrations at FAO HQ on the theme of climate change impacts in Morocco. From l to r: Ait Hmid Mohamed (Moroccan Embassy in Rome), Charles Riemenschneider (FAO), René Gommes, Riad Balaghi, INRA, Rabat
Riad Balaghi and René Gommes
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2009
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Automatic weather station in Juba, with Elijah Mukhala (FAO, 2nd from right)
Seminar organised by the Turkish Regional WMO training center at Alanya.
Atelier international sur l’adaptation de l’agriculture aux changements climatiques en Afrique de l’Ouest, 27-30 avril 2009 à Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (with R. Stefanski, WMO) |
2010
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Meeting on methodologies of climate change impact assessment in agriculture. Front row (seated): Eddy de Paauw, ICARDA; Oscar Rojas (JRC), Riad Balaghi (INRA, Morocco), Tarik El Hairech (DMN, Casablanca). Standing, from left to right: François Delobel, FAO; N;Wolfgang Göbel, ICARDA; Abdelaziz El Ouali, Casablanca; Michele Bernardi, FAO; Mauro Evangelisti, FAO consultant; René Gommes, FAO; Ono Kuyk, Univ. Amsterdam; N, N; Bernard Tychon, Univ. Liège, Belgium; Freddy Nachtergaele, FAO; Martin Dubrowski, Univ. Prague.
“Last Supper” at debre-Berhane with some crop insurance project participants, l. to r., Shukri Ahmed, FAO; Aleko Sarris, Univ. Athens; N, Eyob Meherette, Nyala Insurance Company, N, N, Craig MacIntosh, Univ. of California, Davis |
2011
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CRAM-III meeting in Nairobi, with Adams Chavula (Malawi meteorological Services and Rogerio Bonifacio, WFP
CRAM-III meeting in Nairobi, with Steffen Fritz (IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria) and Pietro Ceccato (IRI, Columbia University) |
2012
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… a bureaucratic way of saying that the two years I spent a JRC are over! |
2013
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20130608: it’s graduation day at CAS in Beijing! The fresh PhDs are Dong Taifeng (left) and Afu (right, in the inset). Other people, from left to right: Dr Zou Wentao, Dr Meng Jihua, Zhang Miao (PhD student), Taifeng, You Xingzhi (MSc student) and… Afu (inset).
Some prominent visitors at CAS/RADI on 20130704, from left to right. First row: Dr Nana Yann, assistant professor; Dr Zeng Yuan, assistant professor; Dr Thanya Kiatiwat, Associate Professor, Dean of Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart University, Thailand; Mr Chaiyan Peungkiatpairote, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Thailand; Prof Wu Bingfang (Head of CropWatch Unit); Dr Mongkol Raksapatcharawong, Associate Professor & Lecturer of Faculty of Engineering at Kasetsart University; Dr Meng Jihua, assistant professor. Second row: Dr René Gommes, visiting professor; Dr Chang Sheng, assistant professor; Mr Zhang Miao, PhD student; Dr Zeng Hongwei, assistant professor; Jiratiwan Kruasilp (Ink). PhD student.
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2014
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20140708: Lecture on “Crop Forecasting and Remote Sensing Inputs” at Peking University at a Summer Course on climate change. First row, from left to right: 5 course participant ladies, the blogger, Prof. Qinming Qin (Vice Director of the College of Earth and Spatial Science & course organiser), and Zhang Ning (Lydia, RADI/CAS/CropWatch), 3 participants. |
2015
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Paul Raskin, Tariq Banuri, Gilberto Gallopãn, Pablo Gutman, Al Hammond, Robert Kates, Rob Swart, 2002. Great Transition, The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead; A report of the Global Scenario Group. Stockholm Environment Institute, Boston, Tellus Institute. SEI PoleStar Series Report no. 10. 98 pp.
Global futures cannot be predicted due to three types of indeterminacy— ignorance, surprise and volition. First, incomplete information on the current state of the system and the forces governing its dynamics leads to a statistical dispersion over possible future states. Second, even if precise information were available, complex systems are known to exhibit turbulent behavior, extreme sensitivity to initial conditions and branching behaviors at critical thresholds—the possibilities for novelty and emergent phenomena render prediction impossible. Finally, the future is unknowable because it is subject to human choices that have not yet been made. (Raskin et al., 2002. Chap.2, page 13) |