Jeff

This Day's for You

Paul Piorek, weathercaster for the local cable service News 12 in Connecticut, leads a busy life working a demanding shift schedule familiar to many meteorologists:

I wake up at 2 o’clock every morning, and I’m generally in the office by 3:05. People always ask me why I arrive so early if we don’t go on the air until 5:30. Believe me, it takes at least two hours to pour over the meteorological data, create customized graphics, provide local radio stations with recorded forecasts, write a weather discussion for the News 12 Connecticut Web site, begin working on a blog entry, and type the forecast for the info bar on the bottom of the screen. Despite what many people think, I just can’t “look out the window.”

The results don’t always bring accolades:

Although I’ve never been an umpire or referee, I think I know what it must feel like. It’s been said that nobody ever notices the umpire when he does a fine job. However, when the ump makes a bad call, everybody’s on his back. You see, I have been forecasting the weather for southwestern Connecticut on television and radio over the last 20-plus years. I never hear a word from anybody when the forecast is “right on the money.” But, if my forecast is off the mark, the phone doesn’t stop ringing and the emails keep coming.

But don’t feel sorry for Paul, because unlike so many other unsung heroes in life, he does it, like so many, because he loves the weather.

For me, though, it’s a labor of love. I often tell people, when you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. Happy National Weatherperson’s Day!

What’s that? Oh yes, unlike so many unsung heroes in daily life, weather people get a day to celebrate being who we want to be. And it’s today because this is supposedly the birthday of John Jeffries, the Boston physician who was one of the first American weather enthusiasts of note; just in time for the American Revolution, before the age of storm chasing and broadcasting, he began 40 years of meticulous observing and indulged a daring penchant for ballooning to satisfy his hankering.
All in all it’s not bad to be into weather. Have a nice February 5th, whatever you call it, but keep your feet on the ground.

Jeffries aloft
American John Jeffries flying the English Channel in 1785. Meteorology has long been a natural high.

Security and Climate Panel Videos

Yesterday, Clean Skies News, the energy and environment network, posted several videos from the AMS meeting in Atlanta. They focused on the panel sessions on national security and climate change (see our previous posts here and here). One of the co-chairs, AMS Councilor Ken Carey, of Noblis, was interviewed afterward, and he emphasized that environmental awareness and preparedness for the national security community, like climate change itself, will continue over “the long haul”:
Also taped in an interview afterward was panelist Rear Admiral David Titley, who discussed the Navy’s scientific and strategic interests in climate change:

Clean Skies News also posted about half the panel discussion, in three parts:


Is Science Messy Enough for You?

Brooks Garner, broadcast meteorologist with WIS-TV in Columbia, South Carolina, shares on his blog some interesting impressions from the climate variability and change sessions at the recent AMS meeting in Atlanta. He notes that the process of science we witnessed at the AMS meeting doesn’t fit the pace of the contemporary mindset:

In a culture characterized by the hunger for “instant gratification” (“IG”) in everything from consumerism to relationships, naturally science is struggling through the same tide….

He witnesses some contentious arguments, glaring discrecpancies in interpretations, and clashing priorities that fueled some occasionally tense sessions in Atlanta, like a science “reality show.” Even amid this scientific culture of constant debate and disagreement and incremental progress in understanding, Garner can see that experts overwhelmingly agree that warming is happening and we can’t ignore the consequences. He can also see why the public is not always convinced

[I]nstant gratification will never occur on the topic of global warming. Science will never agree completely in its effects or a solution. But one thing I can guarantee you: the research will never stop, the debate will never cool, and the naysayer’s will never rest. If they did, it would no longer be ‘science’, but instead ‘belief’.

Then he adds a piece of good advice:

Do you “believe” in global warming? I hope not. I hope that everyone would stop “believing” and instead spend that energy learning as much as possible about the subject.

This attitude is the antithesis of instant gratifcation; one striking aspect of Garner’s viewpoint is how similar it is to another blogger-scientist who posted not long after the East Anglia e-mails made the news.
Thomas Zurbuchen is Associate Dean at the Center for Entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering of the University of Michigan. In a posting titled, “Messy Science,” Zurbuchen wrote that the scientists’ e-mails didn’t tell him anything new about climate change, but the huge number of comments about the e-mails he’d received were disturbing.

I am left with a deep sense that most people don’t understand science, or its pursuit. Doing science is more like orienteering, and less like a 100 meter dash. Doing science is messy!

“Most people” includes science grad students, Zurbuchen says.  A lot of grad students expect quick success–or at least steady success with every project. They don’t realize that a lot of ideas and hard work are flushed away by competing evidence.

To most budding scientists, this leads to a major crisis. Now, they have to decide whether they want to be a scientist! As they go forward, they notice that science is about search, and struggles. It is about false starts, about failed projects. It’s not about victory [laps]….

The East Anglia e-mails, he said, showed how frustrated scientists can  become, which leads to all sorts of behavior, including lashing out at the peer review system. While an instant gratification culture may not be able to embrace scientists’ oft-fallible responses to a rock-solid, rock-slow process, Zurbuchen, like Garner,  sees signs of the health of the enterprise despite the humanity of the participants:

Yes, science is not an orderly, straightforward path. It is littered with messy turns and twists. For me, that has been the only reason I have become a scientist. If it was predictable, everybody could be a successful scientist!

AMS on NPR

NPR reporter Jon Hamilton was in Atlanta for the AMS Annual Meeting, searching for the effects of the hacked climate scientists’ emails. He interviewed a number of people at the meeting, with the resulting segment (transcript and audio here) that aired on Morning Edition on Thursday.
The quoted scientists were: Kevin Goebbert, Valparaiso University; Dave Gutzler, University of New Mexico; Chris Folland, UK Met Office; Marcus Williams, Florida State University; and Bill Hooke, AMS Policy Program.

NPOESS Imager Delivered

This week, while the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System was a hot topic at the AMS Annual Meeting, Northrop Grumman delivered a critical NPOESS sensor, the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS).
The VIIRS aboard NPOESS will provide highly detailed imagery of clouds, vegetation, snow cover, dust storms, and other environmental phenomena.
“The delivery of VIIRS enables us to move ahead on an advanced system consisting of spacecraft, sensors, and a ground segment that is already well underway,” said Dave Vandervoet, NPOESS program manager for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.  “This program made terrific progress last year, and the vast majority of the development risk is behind us now.  The sensor that was delivered will be integrated on to the NPOESS Preparatory Project spacecraft, which will be launched next year.”
Raytheon built the instrument under contract to NPOESS prime contractor, Northrop Grumman.
A second VIIRS flight unit scheduled for deployment on the first NPOESS spacecraft, known as C1, is progressing as well.
For samples of next-generation satellite imagery from NPOESS, check out the NexSat web page from Naval Research Labs in Monterey, which was described in the April 2006 issue of BAMS.

Image from NexSat.

On Wayward E-mails and Public Perceptions

The session yesterday summarizing findings from the recent report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, put some heat on authors when attendees asked about the impact of the leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia.
The discussion aired concerns about what scientists can do to overcome  public suspicions generated by the e-mail controversy. To the question, “What concrete steps can we take to get credibility back for our field?”, Tom Karl, Director of the National Climatic Data Center, replied:

I think that’s a very good question, and I don’t think there’s one magic silver bullet. I think the key to our success in this Society and science in general has been the peer review process, and making sure the peer review process is fully understandable not only by our colleagues and peers but the outside world who uses the work that we do. That’s number one.
Secondly, when we actually publish papers, the data upon which the paper is based and the algorithms that are used–we do not have a consistent policy in the world in terms of access to that data. That’s something in our AMS Council meeting we discussed yesterday as to just what our policy should be in making sure it’s explicit. It isn’t quite so clear.
So I think there are some steps that we can take forward. And of course, in addition, the more transparent we can be in making sure that when we do have a paper, we can point to where the data can be found and be accessed–I think those are all important steps, but I’m sure there are others. Again, I don’t think any individual one is going to work. We have to have a multiple front here, and it’s important because it affects all of our work, across the board.

A Pair of Pairs

Washington and Kuettner
Warren Washington and Joachim Kuettner, in 2003.

If you think you’re seeing double at this year’s Annual Meeting it’s not necessarily because of your grueling schedule here in Atlanta. For instance, that’s not one, but two NCAR scientists being honored with named Symposia this week. Today offers sessions honoring Joachim Kuettner; Thursday is reserved for Warren Washington.
Meanwhile, there were indeed two Businger’s at Sunday’s Fellows Reception. Father Joost was celebrated as one of the three new Honorary Members of the AMS, while son Steve was named a Fellow.  We believe this is the first time one family has been so honored at the same Annual Meeting.
Steve and, his father, Joost Businger.

Counting the Cards in Nature's Casino

Rear Admiral David Titley is a panelist Tuesday on national security implications of climate change.
Rear Admiral Titley, a panelist Tueday on national security implications of climate change.

With “New Demands on Science and Services” being the theme of this AMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta, it is safe to say that no demand on climate science is more novel and complex than the national security angle of climate change. Strife in Africa is one area, as we mentioned here, but other flash points include the security of borders once covered by glaciers, water scarcity in numerous regions, and the newly navigable Arctic waterways.
It’s no wonder the Oceanographer of the Navy has gotten involved in this new area.  Rear Admiral Dave Titley, oceanographer of the Navy, who has been charged with the U.S. Navy Task Force Climate Change, will be one of several national security experts featured in the two-part Tuesday Joint Session panel discussions (11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.) on “Environmental Security: National Security Implications of Global Climate Change.”
In an interview on climate change with Armed Services radio, Admiral Titley showed a strikingly forward, mission-oriented viewpoint on the Navy’s interest in climate change, and not just the practical attitude of an officer with a research background.
“We’re operating in Nature’s casino,” he said, “and I intend to count the cards.”

Data Stewardship: A Basis for Change

Today’s Town Hall on Data Stewardship promises to be a good opportunity to consider how the atmospheric science community might reshape itself at the most fundamental level: the data underlying science and services.
According to Unidata’s Mohan Ramamurthy, chair of the AMS Ad Hoc

Mohan Ramamurthy, Unidata director, and chair of AMS Ad-Hoc Committee on Data Stewardship.

committee presenting its prospectus at the session (12:15 p.m.-1:15 p.m.; B211), data stewardship is not just a topic for people who specialize in archiving. Technology has made this a task for all of us. In the following email exchange, Ramamurthy made a good case to The Front Page for how data stewardship is basic to how the entire community interacts and progresses.
Why did AMS form an Ad Hoc Committee on Data Stewardship?
The AMS STAC Commissioner Roger Wakimoto was fielding a number of questions related to data, so in the fall of 2008 he began highlighting the importance of Data Stewardship. According to Roger’s report to the AMS Council in 2009

Our community is generating huge volumes of data from observing systems (especially remote sensors) and enormous outputs via numerical simulations. In addition, topics such as data archival, access (including free access between countries), maintenance, metadata, visualization, life expectancy are becoming critical at many institutions. In light of this background information, it was my suggestion that the AMS needed to propose a formal mechanism to recognize this important area that permeates our entire discipline.

How have stewardship needs changed in recent years?
Data has always been essential to the field. However, advances in computing, information and observational technologies have resulted in larger and larger volumes of diverse data being generated from many sources and they are being used/consumed by more and more people. What used to be the purview of just data centers and providers, has now become a responsibility for many more stakeholders. Also, there is increasing awareness of the importance of data and data stewardship. For example, the term “metadata” was not part of the scientific vernacular until recently, but now many more people understand it and recognize its importance. Similarly, until now there was no expectation that people would share datasets from their scientific studies or link them to publications with others. The best people did was give a URL where a reader of a scientific article could get a few additional plots or products. Today it is (theoretically) possible to link all of the data that went into a study (e.g., model output, model configuration, source code, derived analyses, etc.) in appropriate places in a paper. How to go about it? Who should be responsible for keeping those links and data sets alive in perpetuity?
How does AMS figure in this expansion of the possibilities, and responsibilities, of data stewardship?
We should understand that the AMS is not usually the producer of data sets. So the Society will have to work with data producers and data hosting/holding facilities. And how would AMS get authors to submit not just a manuscript but all of the data? And to where? Each area will have, among others, technical challenges, coordination and collaboration
challenges, and organizational challenges.
Also, data stewardship is a vast area, so we will have to scope it properly (i.e. limit it), or else nothing will get done.  Picking those key areas will be a challenge when the membership is diverse and you have a large number of stakeholders.
What might attendees learn from the Town Hall in Atlanta?
The purpose of the Town Hall is two fold. a) To inform attendees about what the Ad Hoc committee is thinking and our proposed plans/activities. b) To gather feedback on our thoughts/plans/prospectus as well as get additional input on what AMS members would like to see happen in this area.
Who will most benefit from attending?
Almost anyone who is interested in data stewardship issues (scientists, data providers, editors and publication commission folks, librarians, educators, IT personnel) will benefit or can attend and contribute their thoughts. But realistically, I expect a smaller subset of those people who are most interested in this subject to come to the Town Hall.
Will  feedback from attendees influence the committee’s task?
This is a brand new area for AMS. As such, everything is a work in progress. We want our mission and tasks to be shaped by the membership.

Nothing but the Truth, Part 2

We noted that Richard Clark challenged his audience at the AMS Student Conference to make the pursuit of truth their purpose in scientific careers. Not surprisingly, others at the conference expanded on that theme. Jon Nese of Penn State gave a talk spanning some of the pros and cons of life in the various sectors of the weather enterprise, but perhaps most striking was his observation of the role that trust plays in scientific endeavors, academic, private, research, operational or otherwise. It’s worth hearing the way Jon expressed the interdependence between the sectors–operational, research, entrepreneurial, and otherwise–in this pursuit of truth as we embark on a meeting week full of discussions of uncertainties, promising findings, and future priorities.