Jeff

Share Ideas on Climate, Influence Policy Options

by

The Front Page received the following note from John Nielsen-Gammon, Regents Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University; Texas State Climatologist; and a Fellow of AMS:

A Message To Fellow Physical Scientists
I’m part of a new journalistic endeavor called the Climate Change National Forum and Review.  The purpose of this web site will be to provide a public forum wherein scientists can discuss the latest research on climate change and share and debate ideas on aspects of climate change especially relevant to policymaking.  When the second phase kicks in, policy experts will join the discussion and compare the benefits and costs of possible responses.
I know what you’re thinking: “This sounds an awful lot like the IPCC.”  Well, it’s not.  Nor is it intended to replace the IPCC in any way.  It has a different purview and a different set of goals.

  • The IPCC is an international body. The CCNFR is focused on issues facing the United States.
  • The IPCC scientists are selected from nominees from various countries. The CCNFR scientists consist of anyone who contributes regularly and constructively to the discussion.
  • The IPCC produces reports every few years, whose summaries are edited and ratified by political representatives. The CCNFR web site is a living document, continuously updated to account for the latest science, and not subject to political interference.
  • The IPCC’s purview is anthropogenic climate change. The CCNFR’s purview is climate change in all its causes and manifestations.  Would it make sense to only adapt to anthropogenic climate change?
  • The IPCC reports are written by experts within their subject fields. The CCNFR will draw upon the expertise and experience of scientists from a wide range of fields, not just insiders.
  • The public gets to see the IPCC final report. The public gets to see scientists grappling with, understanding, and debating the issues.

For me, this last point is an important one.  The public can benefit tremendously from being able to see how scientists think and reason scientifically.  We ask them to trust our collective scientific wisdom without allowing them to see how we evaluate conflicting or flawed evidence and develop judgments.  Presently, the only extensive example of this available to the public is the set of emails from Climategate.
Why should you participate?  First, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of climate science.  Perhaps you’ve just taken the IPCC reports on faith, trusting the experts to do a good job.  Whether they did or not, you will be better able to articulate the issues and explain them to others after exchanging ideas, digging into some of the primary literature, and fleshing out any questions that might be nagging you in the back of your mind.
It should be obvious by now that you don’t need to be a climate scientist to participate, as long as you have a suitable technical background.  Indeed, we need at least some people who know relatively little about the state of the art of climate science, for their intellectual journey while participating in the CCNFR is similar to the journeys we hope dedicated lay readers will take.  Outsiders to climate science can better spot the unspoken assumptions and unjustified conventions.
Your learning will come through the course of online debate and discussion with other scientists.  As you probably know from personal experience, discussion with other scientists is often the absolute best way to come to grips with a contentious or controversial scientific issue.  Along the way, you will develop skills as a writer for an outside audience.
Finally, you will be doing a public service, simultaneously helping to educate the public about climate change and about science in general.
On the negative side, it requires time, though not a whole lot.  We’re only asking for participants to contribute new essays once a month, plus participate in some of the online discussions with other scientists.  Compared to starting your own blog, this is a relatively easy way to bring your ideas and judgment into public view.
Scientists who think they know everything about climate change are not welcome to participate.  If you’re an expert in a particular branch and want to broaden your knowledge, or even if this is something outside your expertise entirely so that you have a lot you want to learn, then come join us.

The link above that John provides is a beta form of the CCNFR web site. To facilitate your postings explaining, debating, and discussing climate science–and to keep the site tied to issues in the news and policymaking–the CCNFR hopes to provide a steady stream of news and statements culled even-handedly  from the media by a professional journalist.
As such, this is not only a time to consider getting in on the ground floor of a new public outreach project but also a time to consider making a donation. The CCNFR hopes to raise more than $60,000 to get a journalist on board soon.

Intelligent Transportation Systems: A Drive-By Opportunity

by

A market research report released this month predicts that vehicle fleet management solutions, involving both software and hardware, will balloon from a $10 billion to a $30 billion industry within five years. The Dallas-based company Markets and Markets cites not only growing numbers of planes, trucks, cars, and ships, especially in Asia, but also several trends that tap the expertise of atmospheric scientists: “The environmental concerns, CO2 emission reduction norms, and fleet operators’ need for operational efficiencies are expected to serve as major drivers for the fleet management market.”
The report echoes the message of another report issued just a month ago by the market research firm, Technavio, which touted double-digit growth in the global intelligent transportation systems markets through 2016.
This can only be good news for a weather community that is already essential to fleet management in the aviation and maritime industries, right? Well, maybe. Especially in the area of smart surface transportation, the opportunities are huge, but everything depends on yet-to-be specified, rapidly evolving markets and technologies. This is a formative moment in that market–a drive-by opportunity. The chance to embed meteorological priorities in this burgeoning field–specifically, equipping vehicles to report key environmental variables to the meteorological community–may pass by quickly. Hence, several years ago an AMS Annual Partnership Committee on Mobile Observations was asked to “articulate a clear vision for mobile data that captures the immense opportunities for these data to improve surface transportation weather services.”
The resulting report is available on the web (here). However, in case you don’t have time to read all 88 pages there, or if you missed the multiple sessions on transportation at this week’s AMS Summer Community Meeting, you have another option. Read the shorter version of the report, by William Mahoney and James O’Sullivan, in the July issue of BAMS.
The article, “Realizing the Potential of Vehicle-Based Observations,” stresses that the involvement of meteorology in intelligent vehicle systems is not a given—our community has to be engaged in the broader technological efforts that are already underway.

Whether this opportunity is acted upon or missed (at least initially) will depend greatly on the weather community’s technical understanding and eventual adoption of … unique datasets and their level of participation in connected vehicle initiatives within the transportation community.

The stakes are obvious, both in getting real-time weather information to drivers and in getting that data into the hands of the atmospheric science community. More than 7,000 people are killed, and more than 600,000 are injured, annually in weather related accidents on the road. Meanwhile,

the availability of hundreds of millions of direct and derived surface observations based on vehicle data will have a significant impact on the weather and climate enterprise. The potential improvements in weather analysis, prediction, and hazard identification should have a large positive effect on all weather-sensitive components of the U.S. economy and the capability to sense the lower atmosphere at finer scales than traditional observation systems, which will improve the detection and diagnosis of extreme weather events that affect lives and property.

It’s no accident, then, that meteorologists are eyeing your car as the observing platform for this future transformation. Mahoney and O’Sullivan detail some of the possibilities:

Vehicle-based air temperature observations could provide additional temporal and spatial specificity required to more clearly identify rain/snow boundaries; also, antilock brake and vehicle stability control event data could support the diagnosis of slippery pavement conditions. Even the most common components of the vehicle can begin to tell a story about the near-surface atmospheric and pavement conditions through the intelligent utilization of vehicle data elements, such as windshield wiper state, external air temperature, headlamps, atmospheric pressure, sun sensors, vehicle stability control, and the status of an antilock breaking system.

For all the benefits of vehicle-based observing networks, however, there are significant challenges. For example, Mahoney and O’Sullivan note, “Traditionally, near-surface weather observations have been generated by stationary platforms. Taking observations from mobile platforms, particularly passenger and fleet vehicles, introduces new dimensions of complexity.” In addition, among other obstacles:

Many of the normal concerns associated with dedicated weather sensors—siting, maintenance, and calibration—are exacerbated with mobile sensors, especially when large numbers are to be sited on a wide variety of vehicles driven by people with varying interest in those sensors. The best place to site a temperature sensor on a particular model of car may not be the best location for a pressure sensor, and the best place for a particular sensor on one model of car might not even exist on another model.

Beyond the hopes of placing dedicated weather sensors on cars, there are, of  course, existing engine sensors and weather-related vehicle behavioral data:

This type of information could be made available quickly without deployment of new sensors, it is considered to be the “low-hanging fruit” of mobile weather sensing. However, it presents some very challenging calibration issues and may ultimately not provide consistent enough information for weather applications.

There are also communications challenges: one intelligent transportation solution that is gaining traction involves direct, dedicated short-range vehicle-to-vehicle communications links between cars sharing the road. The weather community, by contrast, will require longer-range communications solutions to gather information from vehicles; somehow short-range, on-the-road links will need to be integrated with other options such as existing cellular networks creates new challenges .
Meanwhile, there are not just technical but also fiscal and institutional—perhaps legal and regulatory—barriers to successful implementation of the roadway network goals. The report emphasizes that there are solutions to these barriers, even though “a litany of barriers…may leave … the impression that mobile weather observing is too difficult, too costly, or otherwise too problematic to achieve on any useful scale.”
The institutional barriers make plain why improving forecast services for transportation was a vital one for consideration during the high-level considerations at the AMS Summer Community meeting, and by all of us in the weather and climate community. Mahoney and O’Sullivan show that the challenge of emerging roadway systems is an opportunity to shape development of the weather community and how it works:

Management of highways and the traffic they carry involves a large number of active participants, including the federal government, states, counties, municipalities, and regional authorities. In addition, the immature nature of road weather management offers numerous opportunities for entrepreneurial innovation, opening the door for commercial entities with potentially unconventional approaches to deploying mobile weather sensors and managing and exploiting the data from those sensors. At this point, it is not clear that, with all the various participants with their differing needs and agendas, the mobile weather observing enterprise is manageable in the normal sense of the word. In any case, there is no overall authoritative vision for the deployment, operation, management, and governance of mobile weather observing capability, let alone a high-level strategy, concept of operations, or implementation plan.

Boosting the Vitality of the U.S. Weather and Climate Enterprise

by

by James Stalker, President and CEO, RESPR, Inc.
Editor’s note: Because this column has triggered much discussion in the community already, it is important to emphasize that all posts on this blog–guest columns or otherwise–present the opinions of the authors only. These blog posts do not represent official policy or views of the AMS or of its membership. What follows are an individual’s thoughts, and we hope that others in the community recognize, as does Mr. Stalker, the value of open discussion.
The U.S. weather and climate enterprise is exemplary to many nations of the world. And yet, it appears to struggle to maintain its edge—especially in economic development, job creation, and producing constant weather-readiness throughout the nation. While dwindling public funding may be partially to blame, the problem is deeper.
What systemic issues might be holding the enterprise back? Is there unhealthy competition between sectors?  Can we avoid a slowing rate of growth within the weather and climate enterprise? How can we make the enterprise more vibrant and help it stay vibrant? It is important to consider such questions, especially now as we prepare for the AMS Community Meeting this week in Boulder, Colorado.
Sectors and their objectives
Government, academia, and the private sectors all provide products and services to a fourth sector—the users. This user sector is the most important of all, and its members must far outnumber those of the other sectors in a healthy enterprise.
Each sector has a different mission. For example, government mainly provides timely weather and climate information to citizens in order to save lives and minimize property damage. The government sector, secondarily, provides weather and climate information to the academic and private sectors to indirectly support education, research, and economic development. Additionally, the government engages in research and educational efforts itself.
It is fair to ask whether or not the government sector adequately fulfills its primary objective. Huge gaps exist in the weather and climate information available in the public domain today, and there are inabilities to adequately customize data to meet the disparate needs of the citizens. However, the government sector does provide information critical to the academic and private sectors. The fact that the government sector seems to do better in achieving its secondary objective, relatively speaking, than its primary objective suggests that something does not work well.
The primary objective of the academic sector is to educate our future scientists and technicians. Secondarily, it offers products and services to the other sectors. Strengthened weather and climate datasets from a refocused government sector would improve the academic sector’s success in its primary and secondary objectives. A refocused government sector would similarly benefit the private sector in developing better value-added products/services for users. The beneficiary shareholders come from all walks of life, of course, but primarily it is the satisfied customers—the users—who keep the private sector alive and well.
Pathways for Products
Curiously, the “free” weather and climate data model of the government sector can potentially lead to the unsustainable situation in which product and service providers outnumber users. We see this by looking at the various pathways by which weather and climate data product and service providers interact with one another and reach out to the user sector.

Schematic showing various pathways amongst four sectors.
Schematic showing various pathways amongst four sectors.

 
All the pathways shown above are currently utilized in one way or another. In the current weather and enterprise structure, Pathway 1, by which the private sector reaches out to the user sector, is competing against Pathways 2 and 3, where the government sector and the academic sector, to a lesser degree, offer “free” data products to the user sector. Even though the private sector provides value-added products, the user sector is made to believe that they can get similar weather and climate products from the government and academic sectors for free. Secondly, since the government sector is focusing on Pathway 2, its production of a strong foundational data for Pathway 1A receives minimal attention.
Even though Pathways 1 and 3 don’t necessarily compete with one another, at least not as apparently as Pathways 1 and 2, the academic sector could increase its effectiveness by focusing its scarce financial resources on education and academic research.
The status quo enterprise structure results in unnecessary road blocks for the enterprise as a whole.
The vitality of the enterprise would get a boost if the government sector reversed its priority of objectives and emphasized, instead, on providing critical weather and climate information to the private (Pathway 1A) and academic (indirectly to Pathway 1B) sectors. At the same time, the academic sector would make a positive contribution to the vitality of the enterprise by shifting focus on improving and providing weather and climate information through academic research to the private sector (Pathway 1B). Both Pathways 2 and 3 would become secondary objectives in the new sectoral coexistence illustrated here.
This suggests that a business model aimed at providing “free” weather and climate information, while appealing, is not sustainable and will lead to inferior products. This model puts the private sector at a severe disadvantage.
The whole weather and climate enterprise will have to realize this fatal flaw. The government sector should ask itself: “Would it be better to invest more of the taxpayer dollars in what the government sector does better than in what it does not do so well?”
With this adjustment, the private sector will become the chief provider of end-user products and services to the user sector directly. This would not necessarily mean the end of Pathway 2, however. For example, the government might wonder if some users would be unable to afford the value-added products/services provided by the private sector. In this case, instead of trying to produce end-user products/services itself, the government sector would be better off purchasing them from the private sector and making them available to those users who are in need of the value-added products/services. In other words, certain segments of users may receive value-added products indirectly from the private sector.
A Path to Consider
Leaders engaged in weather and climate products and services from the three sectors should get together and evaluate the merit of this adjustment of priorities. The government sector would share with the other sectors; its effort would be appropriately split between strengthening the foundational weather and climate information and directly reaching out to the user sector. An oversight committee, sponsored by AMS, could ensure continued implementation of this new adjustment within the weather and climate enterprise. This committee would come up with further adjustments to the enterprise structure.
It is necessary practice in business, government, and academia alike to continually reexamine priorities to ensure economic vitality in a changing society and changing markets. The weather and climate enterprise should be no exception.
 

Moving Forward, Again, on a National Network of Networks

by

by James Stalker, President & CEO, RESPR, Inc.
Since my last blog in The Front Page a little over a year ago about the effort to form a National Network of Networks, many changes have taken place.
First, the AMS NNoN ad hoc Committee completed its final report in 2013, which is available on the AMS website at http://ametsoc.org/boardpges/cwce/docs/NoN/2013-06-01-NNoN-Final-Report.pdf. A short summary article will appear in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society this fall.
While these are welcome developments, the network of networks initiative almost came to a screeching halt except for the work of the Weather and Climate Enterprise Commissioner, Matt Parker, who didn’t want it to go away. Matt asked me to chair the new Nationwide Network of Networks (NNoN) effort going forward. At that time, as the NNoN R&D/Testbeds Working Group chair for the previous three years, I was prepared for the seemingly inevitable end of the NNoN effort, but refused to accept it.
So, here we are now with renewed enthusiasm for the new NNoN initiative taking shape within a full fledged AMS NNoN Committee, under the AMS Board on Strategic Topics (BEST). Previous participants, particularly John Lasley, and the past NNoN ad hoc Committee chair, George Frederick, pooled together a committee of more than 30 people to resume the effort.
For those of you who are not familiar with the NNoN initiative, it all got started when the National Research Council (NRC) report titled Observing the Weather and Climate From the Ground Up: A Nationwide Network of Networks came out in 2009. The AMS NNoN ad hoc Committee further reviewed the recommendations of the NRC report and produced the aforementioned report of its own.
The ad hoc committee produced six specific recommendations, but the first and most important one is to organize a stakeholders summit to gain weather and climate community-wide support for the NNoN effort. The renewed NNoN initiative is, in fact, considering this recommendation in stride. It will hold a couple of mini-summit meetings in 2013 and 2014, before the culminating stakeholders summit in 2015.
In this regard, a meeting is scheduled to take place in Boulder, Colorado, on Monday, August 12, the day before the AMS Summer Community Meeting begins. Members of the weather and climate enterprise community are urged to attend this mini-summit to learn about the new NNoN direction and provide critical input.
One of the key tweaks in the approach of the new NNoN is the bottom-up approach, as opposed to the top-down approach of the earlier efforts. In other words, new network members joining the NNoN are consulted for their input before recommendations are suggested specifically for that network member. Another key tweak is that the new NNoN Committee is going to actually help network members implement the network-specific recommendations. Implementation services will require funding, and the new NNoN is exploring many possible ways to secure such funding.
The new NNoN effort is supported by three working groups: 1) an Implementation Working Group, 2) an Outreach Working Group, and 3) an Advisory Working Group. These working groups comprise multiple teams to provide the benefits network members are looking for. The upcoming BAMS article will detail the new NNoN initiative, including the working groups and the teams that comprise them.
Also, for further information and for expressing your interest to join the effort as a committee member, get in touch with me at [email protected] or any of the three working group chairs (Greg Partt at [email protected]; John Lasley at [email protected]; Don Berchoff at [email protected]).

The Other Science for Broadcast Meteorologists: Psychology!

by

The agenda of the 41st AMS Broadcast Meteorology Conference, held today through Friday in Nashville, covers a wide range of weather and meteorology. Not surprisingly, there’s a lot about psychology, too–including one presentation advising on-air meteorologists on “How to Develop Alligator Skin in order to ‘Survive.'”
The following column, by Rob Haswell, a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist in Milwaukee, delves into the ins and outs of that second science all too familiar to weathercasters.

Let me start by saying I love being on TV. I love what I do and everything that comes along with it–even the bad stuff. Sure, I’d like to make more money, I wish I didn’t work at crazy hours, and sometimes I’d like to be able to shop for groceries without dealing with that guy who has to grab my arm and pronounce, “Hey, you’re that guy on TV!”. But otherwise, I love broadcast meteorology.

With that on the record, I have to say there are times when I wish I could just forecast and not worry about how it was heard by the viewing and listening public. How a forecast is received has numerous variables that are outside of the realm of atmospheric science. Viewers have a form of selective listening that causes them to hear what they want–or not hear you at all. They want specifics but demand we generalize everything, and they suffer from severe long-term memory loss that causes them to relate only to what is happening in the present or very near past and future.
Perhaps the biggest challenge to any broadcast meteorologist is that of selective listening on the part of viewers or radio listeners. It’s similar to the selective hearing that children have: they can’t hear their own name shouted from the front porch but can make out the bells of an ice cream truck from miles away. Let’s take, for example, a viewer who has weekend plans to play golf or attend a wedding. When a forecaster says there is a chance of rain on Saturday, a pessimist will hear, “Your golf game will be rained out,” while an optimist (or perhaps someone in denial) will hear, “Your wedding will be beautiful and dry.” None of that changes what the actual chance of rain is for that area.
The human ear is capable of taking in everything we’re saying, but the human brain tends to lean toward the dramatic. So when a forecaster calls for a 7-15 centimeters of snow in an area the viewer will typically only pick up on the higher number and forget the lower number. When the storm passes with an average of 7-9 centimeters the viewer accuses us of exaggerating for ratings. This becomes an even bigger challenge when a broadcaster covers a large area with a variety of microclimates or that is affected by systems and fronts differently. If I feel the storm will leave 10-15 centimeters in our northern coverage area I will inform viewers to expect that snow north of a major east-to-west route just south of the snowfall forecast area. Nonetheless, a viewer well south of that route might just hear 15 centimeters and then cry foul when their area does not get that much snow! Then, when we explain to that viewer that his or her area was not in the forecast to get that much snow, they will might accuse you of “massaging your numbers” or simply deny you ever said such a thing. Are they delusional? No. They heard what they heard and that is their own reality.
Of course we could combat this by providing a more detailed forecast. In some ways the internet enables us to do that. We can put more detailed information online than we can present on the air. However, despite viewers’ demand for accuracy, they also demand brevity and generalities. Yes, a growing group of weather junkies love it when I break out the water vapor imagery or talk about vorticity, but the much larger group simply wants to know if it is going to rain or snow. We have to cater to the crowd that wants to know if it is sweater weather or t-shirt weather. We must remember that we are only part of a program whose main goal is to attract a large audience, not necessarily to teach the viewer about the intricacies of the atmosphere. We can’t expect a television or radio station to devote enough time for a complete, in-depth forecast discussion in each and every quarter hour.
So, viewers demand that I tell them the amount of snow in their driveway to the centimeter or the exact high temperature to within a degree for their backyard, but at the same time they want me to tell them in a brief, generalized manner that doesn’t overly tax their brains. In a sense, they are their own worst enemies if they want a more accurate forecast.
Lastly, the broadcast meteorologist is up against the viewer’s memory. Today’s viewer lives in the now. Our father’s and grandfather’s generations were more connected to the world around them in their daily lives. They seemed to remember what last winter brought and what the average spring is. That was partly because families weren’t as mobile then. Nowadays it’s common to move across the country or across the world, and as a result people don’t know their local climate. However, the average person–in particular from post-GenX generations–have short attention spans, which leads to confusion about climate–and in particular when discussing climate change.
Take for example the colder- and snowier-than-average February and March in much of the Great Lakes. Due to some late-season snowfalls and cold snaps, viewers were convinced that this was the harshest winter on record. They were incapable of remembering the well above-average December or the nearly snowless January. This climate amnesia is a “what have you done for me lately?” mindset.
This memory problem—this “now” focus—hits fever pitch on the issue of global climate change, which, sadly, is so contentious that very few on-air meteorologists will even touch it publicly.  If a few days in a row are unseasonably cold it won’t be very long before the broadcast meteorologist has to contend with e-mails or Facebook posts snarking, “Where’s Global Warming now?!” Or if we manage, as we did here in Wisconsin, to have a couple of below-average months back to back, you’ll hear calls of “Global Warming Fraud” because viewers have forgotten the numerous consecutive months of above-average temperatures, not to mention the deadly heat or extensive drought of the previous summer.
There you have it. The broadcast meteorologist is up against not only the scientific challenges of forecasting but also the challenge of psychology. We’re speaking to an audience of selective listeners who hear what they what to hear. A group of folks who want spot-on accuracy delivered in broad strokes and witty banter. And an audience that seems to relate only to what is happening in the world around them at this very moment.
So do we give up and just assume we’ll never get through to them? No. These are just challenges, not insurmountable obstacles. Broadcast meteorologist need to use all the tools at their disposal to provide specifics and focus their audience on what they need to know. Use Twitter and Facebook to engage the viewer and keep the forecast up to the minute. Take advantage of the internet to post more detailed data for those who crave it, and use the on-air portion of our job to create more weather junkies who will consume that data. We need to keep it simple while at the same time not falling for the traps of oversimplification. We need to use climate as a history lesson for the viewer to remind them over and over about what the world outside has been like so as to put today’s weather in context.
Lastly, we need to grow a thick skin. For no matter how much we work at educating, informing, and entertaining, some viewers will always revel in what they see as our shortcomings. Remember the old saying, “Weep for the weather forecaster. When he’s wrong, no one forgets. When he’s right, no one remembers.”

Avoiding Toaster Strudel Exchanges

by

by Keith L. Seitter, CCM, AMS Executive Director
Those of us who have siblings know that the relationship is built, in part, on needling.
When my two sons, Kevin and Matt, were eight and three years old, respectively, Kevin enjoyed Toaster Strudel® as an occasional breakfast treat. Matt, meanwhile, was just beginning to learn the joys of thoroughly annoying a sibling and was quickly becoming quite good at it.  One weekend morning, the following exchange took place:

Matt (to Kevin): We don’t have any Toaster Strudel.
Kevin:  Yes we do.
Matt:  No we don’t.
Kevin:  We do.  Mom picked some up at the store.
Matt:  No we don’t.
Kevin (becoming annoyed):  Matt, we do have some, I saw mom put it in the freezer!
Matt (remaining completely calm and collected):  No we don’t.
Kevin (stomping to the freezer and pulling the box out):  See!  We do have it!
Matt (still calm and collected):  No we don’t.

At about this point, when Kevin was clearly exasperated, I think I did the parental thing and intervened to calm things down.
I relay this little story because some of the “debate” on climate change seems to be taking on the character of this Toaster Strudel exchange.  And it is far less amusing when it is happening among adults in the media and in the blogosphere.
Frequent readers of my monthly column in BAMS will know that I have long been advocating for open and respectful dialogue on the science of climate change, with all parties recognizing that as scientists it is our job to be skeptical and require solid theory and evidence to back up claims.  We must always be cognizant of how hard it is to keep our intrinsic values from triggering confirmation bias as we review research results or listen to alternative explanations for observational evidence.  Our training as scientists, however, makes it clear that our goal must always be the objective truth — whether it supports our belief system or not.  We must all strive for that level of integrity.
I continue to feel that with open and respectful dialogue on the various complex issues involved in climate change we can achieve greater understanding within our community and less divisiveness.  We have to recognize, however, that “Toaster Strudel exchanges” are not about the evidence.  They have an entirely different goal from finding the objective truth, and failing to recognize that will only lead to frustration.
 

Hard Luck, Hard Lessons in Moore

by

While we hope, pray, and provide for survivors of Monday’s tragedy in Moore, Oklahoma, it is impossible to ignore the terrible turn of bad luck this tornado represents.
In 1999 Moore was struck by what has been considered the most powerful tornado ever observed on radar–winds over 300 miles an hour aloft. That was a billion dollar disaster that claimed 36 lives. Then, in 2003, the same path of destruction was crossed again–fortunately claiming no lives. Nonetheless at the time this powerful twister was rated an F-4 on the old version of the Fujita scale. And this week…unspeakable destruction and loss of loved ones as a mile-wide-plus tornado—an EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale—yet again crossed the benighted path through Moore.
People in tornado country are vulnerable. It should be as simple as that. But the people of Moore are being tested beyond any threshold of resilience we might expect from the odds.
Clearly, lightning can strike in the same place twice. The people of Moore, and of Oklahoma in general, understood that, and have been open to the advice of the weather and climate community. For example, in 2002 the greater Oklahoma City metropolis spent $4.5 million to upgrade and expand its warning siren system. The Moore area alone has a network of 36 sirens and apparently took full advantage of the 16 minute warning lead time. Furthermore, areport from Oklahoma Climate Survey’s Andrea Dawn Melvin revealed the terrible vulnerability of schools in the 1999 disaster (she presented these findings at the 2002 AMS Annual Meeting; and at the symposium for the one-year anniversary of the tornado, in Norman). In response, school districts in the state have taken her advice to heart, revising emergency plans, and in some case building or reinforcing shelters.
But making good luck out of bad is an unceasing, and apparently unforgiving task, for meteorologists and citizens alike. Preparations are rarely perfect. Even though Melvin’s report helped spur Oklahoma City and other jurisdictions to create safe rooms in schools, other cities, like Moore, did not go this far in safety preparations. The two schools damaged in 1999 were rebuilt with safe rooms, but the other schools in the district–including those destroyed on Monday–were not upgraded in this manner.
Furthermore, while the 1999 tornado was among the most thoroughly analyzed of all severe storms in history, lessons drawn about building safety were not always heeded. A Weather and Forecasting paper by engineer and storm chaser Tim Marshall showed how the damage from the 1999 Moore tornado looked like the work of extreme winds until you examined how the houses had been built. Connections between frame and foundation, roof and walls had been compromised easily because of poor construction practices. Garage doors had been uncommonly weak points, forcing otherwise fine houses to yield to the storm. Marshall concluded, “Houses with F4 or F5 damage likely failed when wind gusts reached F2 on the original F scale.”
And yet, inspecting the rebuilding in Moore 40 days after the disaster, Marshall already found numerous instances of the same construction mistakes being repeated. It was rare for builders to exceed code standards in order to strengthen houses for a repeat tornado.
Unfortunately nature did repeat. While construction improvements would not prevent failure of a house in the worst case scenario, there are a lot of tornadoes in which safety can be improved by using the right kinds of fasteners, improving shelters, updating sirens, and the like. Monday’s disaster goes far beyond the placement of hardware and planks, but that is not the point. These tornadoes are a reminder  that all this happened before and can happen again.
Pray that hard luck finally ends for Moore, but remember that we are a community that must keep on learning hard lessons.
 
 

The Value of Knowing Our Value

by

by Ellen Klicka, AMS Policy Program
Sometimes articulating the right question is the tipping point on the path to the right solution.
At last week’s AMS Washington Forum, members of the weather, water and climate enterprise and other leaders assembled to discuss the pressing issues the community is facing. Speakers and attendees alike posed questions, shared insights and then posed better questions.
The first panel took a focused look at progressing towards a better understanding of the economic value of the weather and climate enterprise.
One question that is as good as any to begin an exploration is, “Why do we want to estimate the value of the enterprise?” Forum participants frequently revisited this point during the forum. What follows are themes raised throughout the three-day dialogue.
As a community, weather, water and climate organizations and professionals do not justify in quantitative terms their value to society as effectively as other enterprises. Where can this community say it fits in?
The difficulties created by increasingly tight federal budgets are inescapable. Some say if the enterprise does not step forward to demonstrate why its labor is vital to the nation, decision makers with less knowledge will have no choice but to set priorities on their own. Others believe that framing of the issue is divisive, pitting segments of the community against each other for finite resources.
In either case, quantifying the value of the weather and climate enterprise requires a paradigm shift from evaluating the costs of weather to focusing instead on the benefits of weather and climate information.
Part of the challenge stems from the cumbersome and imprecise nature of the steps involved in calculating even the smallest microcosm of the enterprise. If investigators did arrive at a total dollar value or benefit-to-cost ratio of investment in the enterprise, how confident could anyone be in its basis?
The Weather Enterprise Economic Evaluation Team, under the auspices of the AMS Commission on the Weather and Climate Enterprise, will complete a draft request for proposals by this summer to commission the largest study of this kind ever undertaken.
While most members of the enterprise are scientists, the tools of economics will be valuable to this study. For example, an examination of marginal values brings to light the gains from increased investment. Where is the biggest bang for your buck for one extra dollar? Logic points to the biggest need: getting the public to understand and use forecast information effectively so they take appropriate action.
These recent discussions on valuation have not been the first among the AMS membership, and they won’t be the last. The themes of the next enterprise-wide gathering—the AMS Summer Community Meeting in Boulder, Colorado, on August 12-15–include improving weather forecasts; supporting ground transportation, aviation, and conventional and renewable energy; and, yes, determining the economic value of the weather and climate enterprise.
Until then, ponder this multiple choice question:
How good do we want to be as a nation?

A. No worse than we are today
B. As good as we can be (with no realistic limitations on resources)
C. As good as we can afford to be at a fixed cost-benefit ratio
D. As good as or better than other nations at a similar economic development stage

Budget Squeeze Spurs U.S. Weather Collaboration

by

by George Leopold, AMS Policy Program
The watchword for future federal weather efforts will be collaboration.
Budget sequestration has so far limited the options for program managers seeking ways to fund new observation platforms ranging from expensive satellites to ships and unmanned aircraft carrying weather sensors. For the U.S. military, which has taken the brunt of across-the-board spending cuts, a new weather satellite like the Defense Weather Follow-On System means fewer ships and planes.
The zero-sum budget process faced by federal agencies means that “if you want something, you have to give up something else,” says Robbie Hood, director of NOAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems program. “Our job is to look at all these new technologies” and identify the best option.
The Navy also is looking at unmanned aircraft along with new ship-based sensors as ways to monitor the lower atmosphere. The Navy’s weather requirements appear to mesh well with those of civilian agencies like NOAA.
The military services and civilian agencies such as NOAA are again attempting to share weather observation data as a way to stretch scarce dollars. Weather observing needs continue to dovetail across stakeholders as collaboration heats up among the services, civilian agencies and other entities. For example, the Army needs satellite data on conditions like soil moisture content when planning ground operations.
One area ripe for closer cooperation is ocean observations, an obvious focus for the Navy and a growing segment of weather observations for storm trackers and climate modelers. Leveraging emerging platforms like drones, unmanned boats and ship-based sensors could help fill part of the anticipated gap in satellite coverage of the Earth’s oceans. For the military, coverage gaps could result from either the failure of an Earth observation satellite, delays in launching the Defense Weather Follow-On System or the fact that U.S. weather satellites tend to target the coasts.
NOAA’s Hood said her office is working with other agencies to synch up new weather observation requirements. She noted that using unmanned aircraft for applications like monitoring Arctic sea ice, for example, is similar in many ways to military reconnaissance missions.
NOAA has purchased used Puma AE unmanned aircraft from the Army at bargain prices and will hand launch them from U.S. Coast Guard ships on test flights later this year. The unmanned aircraft have been used extensively by the Army to “see over the next hill.” The Puma AE has a 9.2-foot wingspan, weighs 13 pounds and can remain aloft for up to two hours.
Hood said monitoring Arctic sea ice using sensor platforms like the Puma is an ideal way to promote interagency collaboration given “our commonality of interests.” Continuing budget constraints mean unmanned aircraft outfitted with the appropriate weather sensors and navigation aids are the most cost-effective way to reach critical but remote areas like the Arctic, she added.
While NOAA is investing in Pumas, NASA’s weather drone fleet includes two high-flying, long-endurance Global Hawks purchased from the Air Force.  (NASA operates the unmanned aircraft and NOAA provides most of the sensor payloads.) Meanwhile, the Energy Department is working on new weather sensor systems that could be flown on drones operated by other agencies.
The acquisition strategy of civilian agencies like NOAA and NASA also seeks to leverage the U.S. military’s long experience flying unmanned aircraft. Not only are used drones cheaper, they require less testing. Hence, NOAA and NASA drones will help monitor melting Arctic sea ice this summer as part of the Marginal Ice Zone Observations and Process Experiment. The experiment focuses on targeted observations to gain a better understanding of local conditions like sea surface temperature and salinity during summer melts.
The Navy and NOAA could also collaborate on tracking ocean surface vector winds, Hood said. “There a lot of small, joint efforts designed to keep things moving” despite tight budgets, she added.
The tough U.S. job market, especially for returning veterans, might also be addressed if interagency collaboration expands. Hood said civilian agencies looking for drone operators could recruit veterans with experience flying Global Hawks in combat.

Hanging Together: The AMS Washington Forum

by

by Ellen Klicka, AMS Policy Program
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” – Benjamin Franklin
News headlines these days are reflecting the increasingly austere and complex environment in which private businesses, governments and academic institutions manage to muddle through towards a better tomorrow. Creating new opportunities to collaborate for mutual advancement is more of a necessity than it used to be. The annual AMS Washington Forum, to be held April 2-4, 2013, fills that need for the benefit of all three sectors that make up the weather, water and climate enterprise and offers insight into the workings of Washington, DC, an increasingly austere and complex city.
This year’s theme, the economic value of the weather, water and climate enterprise, builds on discussions at other recent AMS meetings and may resonate particularly well in Washington circles: Considering the national attention on last year’s natural disasters, renewed interest from Congress in climate legislation, the federal budget sequester, and continued economic uncertainty, this event couldn’t be more timely and on topic.
In the last six weeks alone, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, and the House Science, Space and Technology Committee have scheduled hearings or briefings on pressing topics our community is studying or addressing. Topics range from policy-relevant climate issues to the economics of disasters for America’s farmers.
The notion of tacking a dollar value onto the benefits the weather, water and climate community affords the country is not a new one but it has proved an elusive task. Groups within the AMS membership have been grappling with the development of an approach to size up exactly what the enterprise adds to the economy and American society as a whole for at least a couple years. The AMS Annual Meeting and Summer Community Meeting have included discussions on the topic, as have AMS journals (such as these BAMS articles by John Dutton and by Jeffrey Lazo et al.). With the U.S. tightening it collective belt, it is more urgent than ever that the enterprise be able to objectively demonstrate its worth.
Policy makers rely on quantifiable reasons for making choices that affect the country, and enterprises that are defined by industry may have an easier time estimating their market size. The weather, water and climate enterprise cuts across many industry sectors. Avoided losses can be difficult to pinpoint. Because our community operates in an environment characterized by increasing pressure to justify the need for investment, the AMS Commission on the Weather and Climate Enterprise is planning a valuation effort. The first panel at this year’s Forum will explore the challenge and discuss approaches to a valuation effort.
Subsequent panels will tackle many of the hot issues facing our community right now: international opportunities, data commercialization, environmental security, renewable energy policy, water resource management… the list goes on.
The Washington Forum has evolved through the years since AMS began holding the conference in the national capital. Originally, the forum was held as a benefit to corporate members and fellowship/scholarship donors in recognition of their sponsorship of AMS.  The event expanded to include the government sector and became known as the Public Private Partnership Forum. When the Commission on the Weather and Climate Enterprise was formed in 2005 in response to the National Academies’ Fair Weather Report, it was recognized that the academic sector deserved inclusion as well.
The Washington Forum is an open meeting to which all AMS members and other professionals in the weather, water and climate enterprise are welcome and encouraged to attend. For more information on this year’s event, visit the Forum website.