CW3E and Universidad de Chile Virtually Host the International Atmospheric Rivers Conference-Sponsored Symposium

October 12, 2020

IARC-2020 was a 5-day, fast-paced, and lively virtual conference, held October 5th – 9th. Originally scheduled to take place at Universidad de Chile, Santiago, the conference moved to a virtual platform this year due to the pandemic, with 50 oral presentations, 71 two-minute “lightning” presentations, and approximately 500 registered participants! This represents a continued growth in presentations and attendance from the first two IARC meetings in 2016 and 2018 (75 and 100 total presentations and 100 and 125 participants, respectively). The topics covered this year were: dynamical & physical processes in ARs; impacts of ARs; AR modeling and forecasting; ID, tracking, and inventories; and ARs in the past and future.

The idea of IARC was born from an AR Workshop hosted by CW3E in 2015. Dr. F. Martin Ralph organized a steering committee of international experts, which then convened the first IARC. The main goal of the conference was to bring together a diverse and global community of experts across the fields of atmospheric, hydrologic, oceanic, and polar sciences, as well as water management, civil engineering, and ecology, to advance the state of atmospheric river science and to explore new directions, improved means of disseminating AR forecast information, and upgrades to existing monitoring techniques. The conference was designed to maximize interaction time and encourage collaboration and included breakout sessions and panel discussions along with traditional oral and poster sessions. The conference also strongly encouraged student participation. For a detailed description of the history of IARC, meeting summary articles, and more, please see the website: /iarc/

The entire IARC Steering Committee would like to thank everyone who has contributed and participated in the symposium for helping make it a success! We hope to see, in person, all the familiar faces, as well as many new ones, for the next IARC.

Please see the IARC website for program information, presentation abstracts, and video recordings of the plenary sessions.

IARC Day 5 Panel members answering questions from the audience. (Friday, October 9, 2020)