They say Phoenix has made the desert bloom. Indeed, flying into this city or looking out the hotel window reveals an impressive display of urban ingenuity over the timeless harshness of desert climate.
Sunrise over Phoenix Convention Center. #AMS2015 starting! @ametsoc pic.twitter.com/3Tqsa70slP
— Bill Gail (@wbgail) January 3, 2015
Plenty of papers at this AMS Meeting will examine the pitfalls of this urban oasis–its heat waves, droughts, floods, lightning, and dust storms.
Yet, the meeting will repeat this desert flowering in a microcosm. A day ago this building, the Phoenix Convention Center, was empty. Teeming with people from any number of conferences but empty of water, weather and climate experts…people like you. Now it’s rapidly filling up with a whole community–thousands of your colleagues and their work and ideas. You will hear about new projects, the latest technologies, concerns and hopes for future research and services, ideas for new businesses. You bring your expectations, fill up with ideas, and then leave Phoenix brimming with possibilities.
Arizona, it turns out, is a good place to fill up. In fact there are few more spectacular places to do so. Just as Phoenix bloomed from practically nothing, the Grand Canyon, of all places, recently bloomed from arid to wet, suddenly sloshing with fog. It filled with meteorology. You can, too–the results will be just as spectacular.