Capacity building in meteorological education and research-lessons learned and future prospects

The Ewiem Nimdie summer school is a biennial or triennial event that has been hosted in Ghana and focuses on the atmospheric sciences. The first school was conducted in the summer of 2008, hosted by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) located in Kumasi, with the second school taking place at the same institution two years later, in July 2010. Developing the opportunity to conduct the two summer schools held to date involved overcoming a number of challenges such as logistics, lecture content, local expertise and field equipment, and location of future schools. The portable weather mast provided by the University of Reading was operated at the KNUST field site to provide five-minute averages of various weather parameters during the entire two-week period. Considering the extensive media attention within Ghana that the first two schools received, and the climate-related scope of the school program, the organizers have identified a great potential for gaining sponsorship of the school.