From 12-23 August 2013, the Third WESTPAC Training Course on “Air-Sea Interaction and Modeling – IOC Regional Training and Research Centre on Ocean Dynamics and Climate” was successfully conducted in Qingdao, China. The training course was attended by 33 trainees from 15 countries – Cameroon, DPR Korea, Ecuador, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam, and China. 5 lecturers from US and China provided lectures focusing on Air-sea Interaction and Modeling.

Professor Zhaohua Wu from Florida State University, USA, provided lectures on the EEMD method and the air-sea interactions in an alternative reference frame of modulated annual cycle. Professor Tim Li from University of Hawaii, USA, gave lectures on the atmosphere-ocean interaction processes and the monsoon inter-annual variability. Professor Raghu Murtugudde from University of Maryland, USA, lectured on “Intra-seasonal Time-scales Variability in the Ocean, Ocean Feedbacks and Consequences at Intra-seasonal Time-Scales, Bio-Climate Feedbacks and Low-Frequency Rectifications”. Professor Fangli Qiao from the First Institute of Oceanography of SOA, China, provided lectures on the development of new ocean and climate models and their applications in the operation ocean forecast system, upwelling system off China coasts and issues on Algal Bloom in the Yellow Sea. Professor Changlong Guan from Ocean University of China, provided lectures on “Surface Gravity Wave, Air-Sea Transfer Parameterizations, and their application in the Coupled Atmosphere-Wave-Ocean Modeling System”.

In addition to these lectures, the trainees were grouped into 6 groups, enabling them for not only learn from the trainers and lecturers, but also from each other as well.