In support of its mission to advance science for the benefit of society, the American Meteorological Society publishes 12 peer-reviewed, highly regarded scientific journals. Over four thousand individual volunteer reviewers contribute reviews to AMS journals every year.
Peer reviewers are subject-matter experts who volunteer their time both to advise journal editors on the suitability of a manuscript for publication and to provide guidance to authors in improving the accuracy and readability of their study. Peer reviewers’ careful evaluation of manuscripts is essential to scientific communication.
During Peer Review Week each September AMS highlights recipients of the AMS Editor’s Award, which is given for excellence in reviewing. AMS reviewers almost always do their work anonymously, so the Editor’s Award and Peer Review Week are rare opportunities to thank at least some reviewers by name, and give them an opportunity to share their thoughts on this essential but unsung task.
“Peer review is not infallible, especially at the level of each individual paper, but it is an important mechanism for steering science in the long run towards better descriptions of how the world works.”
-Eric Firing, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
“[As a researcher] It’s often harder to explain what you’ve done than to do it in the first place. It’s easy to develop your own vocabulary for a problem that’s opaque to outside readers. A good reviewer will point out where my arguments are unclear and sometimes even help me clarify them. In the process, this often helps clarify my own thinking on the problem.”
-Christopher Pitt Wolfe, Stony Brook University
What keeps you motivated to review?
“I learn something from nearly every manuscript I review … One advantage of being a reviewer is to have the opportunity to read a manuscript that has not been published yet.”
-Lili Lei, Nanjing University, China
“In doing peer reviews, I have learned about new topics, methodologies, and trends in the field.”
-Will Cheng, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
“From both the perspective of a reviewer and an author, the review process often provides new angles of how your studies are comprehended by people whose expertise is different from yours. I find that both annoying (of course!) and enlightening.”
-Yunji Zhang, The Pennsylvania State University
“I’ve learned a lot of science from reviewing. Often, you have to read up on concepts that you don’t know well enough. Or you try to reproduce some results and, in the process, find something interesting.”
-Ingo Richter, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)
How do you approach the task of reviewing?
“It takes a lot of time to get research published. Reviewers are volunteers that take time out of their own work and lives to provide constructive feedback for people they may not know. It is a thankless job most of the time. Also, we don’t make up the rules as we go. We have standards and following those standards helps maintain objectivity and push the collective understanding of a given topic. Patience and understanding are key. It takes effort to provide a constructive and thorough review.”
-Stephen Strader, Villanova University
“Be purposefully constructive. The AMS provides great reviewer instructions. When following those instructions and drafting comments, I remind myself that my comments should serve the journal, the scientific enterprise, and the authors. I find it straightforward to focus on the first two, but the last is hard to deliver without some purposeful thinking. In practice, the outcome can too easily be comments that are excessively harsh or too generic to be helpful for authors. Thoughtful reviews can make a difference, especially for an early-career researcher. For example, reviewers offered specific suggestions that helped me improve my writing and research. By correcting my rookie mistakes early, those reviewers also spared the reviewers of my later studies some headaches. This is the power of being purposefully constructive.”
-Gan Zhang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
“The most important thing to keep in mind when reviewing a manuscript is to provide unbiased, objective, and constructive feedback to the authors. It is important to ensure that the methods/science is sound, which can be done by providing constructive comments and suggestions that the authors can use to improve the quality and robustness of their work.”
-Noah Samuel Brauer, NOAA/NWS Weather Prediction Center
“A paper should contribute to the current understanding of the topic. This could be a new discovery, a support or challenge of existing knowledge, or insights that can stimulate discussion in the community. As a reviewer, these are the aspects I focus on. However, it’s important to remember that reviewers are only the first judges of the paper — ultimately, readers will also assess it (and the reviewers’ judgment).”
-Young-Ha Kim, Seoul National University
“Everything should make sense in detail. If something doesn’t make sense, it could be wrong or simply not explained well (usually the latter). There should be enough information that a reader reasonably familiar with the field could reproduce the results (or at least the analysis) given sufficient time and resources.”
-Christopher Pitt Wolfe, Stony Brook University
“Whenever I review a manuscript, I try to make sure that it is pedagogical. That is, I want to make sure that if an early stage graduate student were to read it, they would be able to understand the background and gaps in the literature and follow the methodology. When I approach peer review through this lens, it helps identify areas that may be unclear to readers who are not experts in the specific subtopic, and overall improve the flow of the narrative.”
-Varvara Zemskova, University of Waterloo, Canada
“Advice I was given at some point (can’t remember from who) is that most manuscripts will get accepted somewhere. Thus, it is your job as a reviewer to help the authors get the manuscript accepted at the submitted journal if at all possible. This attitude has helped me feel aligned with the authors, rather than a gatekeeper.”
-Nathan Lenssen, Colorado School of Mines and NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research
What has reviewing taught you about the scientific process?
“Peer review may sound like a dry, boring, non-stimulating activity. But in reality, peer review requires creative and critical thinking, and often I learn new facts about topics related to atmospheric science and/or am exposed to new ways of thinking about subjects I already know a lot about. Performing peer review has expanded my worldview and helped me develop the skill of examining issues from perspectives not native to my own history.”
-Jeffrey Duda, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science, Earth System Research Lab
“To borrow from something I heard recently from a grade-school science teacher, it’s important to understand that science is never finished. Even if a study has been rigorously evaluated through peer review, in the future new data, methods, or interpretations could lead to a different set of conclusions. That being said, we can still take actions in response to the best information we have available, especially if the same conclusions have been found by multiple studies examining a question from many different angles.”
In recognition of National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15), the American Meteorological Society is spotlighting the amazing careers and contributions of a few of our Latinx/Hispanic community members. This week, we hear from Dr. Annareli Morales!
What is your current work? Can you tell us a bit about your research?
I am the air quality policy analyst for Weld County in northern Colorado. I’ve been working at the Department of Public Health and Environment for about 1.5 years. In my role, I’m responsible for performing data, legislative, and regulation review: gathering input from inside and outside our local government and providing recommendations to elected officials/department leadership as a subject matter expert. I am a resource on air quality related topics for boards, staff, towns/cities, and the general public.
What was an important moment in your early career?
Being selected to the NSF Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) program at UCAR/NCAR was an important moment in undergrad. The program helped me grow my scientific network and learn professional skills like data analysis, research, public speaking, presenting technical information in a digestible manner, scientific writing, and much more. I was able to try different research subjects until I found the one that resonated with me. I also made wonderful, life-long friends who have supported me throughout my career and collaborated with me to change the culture in academia to a more inclusive and equitable one.
What is something you’re proud of professionally?
I’m proud of so many things, but the most recent is receiving the 2025 AMS Early Career Achievement Award. It fills my heart with joy to know that I made an impression in the lives of people who took the time to prepare a nomination package (it’s A LOT of work), and that my colleagues decided I was representative of what this award is intended to celebrate.
Are there ways in which your Hispanic/Latinx heritage has influenced or enriched your career?
My Mexican-American heritage has influenced my decisions throughout my career. Every time I think about science communication I think, “Would my mom be able to understand this?” I make sure I can express in both my languages how science impacts our day-to-day lives, and that science is for everyone.
Experiences and conversations with my family in Illinois and Mexico have sparked numerous research ideas, like understanding the variability of the midsummer drought in southwestern Mexico; analyzing the weather patterns associated with urban flooding in my hometown of Cicero, IL; and developing a Mesoamerica version of NCAR kilometer-scale climate simulations to facilitate orographic precipitation research in the complex topography of Mexico and Caribbean islands. My career has been enriched by mentoring and creating a smoother path for the next generation of Hispanic/Latinx scientists. I can’t wait to see what ideas they’ll explore.
Last month, we lost a giant in the field of meteorology. Through the course of her illustrious career, Eugenia Kalnay pioneered not only the fundamental science and practical applications of numerical weather prediction, she also influenced many careers. Her scientific contributions and leadership led to improved forecasts, helping save lives and property across the globe and making U.S. weather and seasonal climate prediction world-class.
Kalnay had deep ties with the AMS. In 1982, she became a Fellow of the AMS. She was elected to the AMS Council in 1995. In 2015, a named Symposium was held in her honor at the 95th AMS Annual Meeting in Phoenix. The list of awards she received from the AMS includes the following: Jule G. Charney Award (1995), Joanne Simpson Mentorship Award (2015), Honorary Member (2015), and the first ever Jagadish Shukla Earth System Predictability Prize (2024).
Kalnay receiving the Joanne Simpson Mentorship Award in 2015 from AMS President William Gail. (Photo credit: AMS)
Kalnay exemplified simple living and high thinking. She demonstrated how one can, through grit and determination, overcome unforeseen obstacles and achieve what one sets out for oneself. In 1966, having completed her undergraduate degree, she was working as a meteorology research assistant at the University of Buenos Aires, when a military coup occurred in Argentina. In its wake, mass resignations and disruptions on campus made it untenable for her to continue to work there. Through the timely support and intervention of Dean Rolando Garcia, she got an opportunity to pursue her studies in meteorology at MIT. Her graduate advisor was Jule G. Charney.
The rest of her story will go down in the annals of meteorology.
In 1971 she became the first female PhD and, two years later, the first female professor in the MIT Department of Meteorology. She was a role model for other women that followed, including Paola Malanotte-Rizzoli and Inez Fung, pioneers in their own right. She later moved to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Laboratory for Atmospheres; in 1984, she became Head of the Global Modeling and Simulation Branch. From 1987 to 1997, she worked as director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Environmental Modeling Center at NOAA.
Her efforts and leadership in data assimilation approaches at NCEP led to substantive improvements in weather forecast models. The data assimilation approaches she developed at NCEP, along with the “breeding method” she created with Zoltan Toth, helped improve weather forecasts, making a useful 10-day forecast possible.
Kalnay spearheaded a major reanalysis project of 40+ years of global climate data there (and later, 50- and 60-year reanalyses), which became a keystone for climate science. The 1996 paper in BAMS describing the 40-year reanalysis project has, at last count, been cited a staggering 35,330 times, making it one of the most widely referenced articles in geosciences. According to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, “The reanalysis is certainly the most scientifically fertile dataset in climate science since its creation (and perhaps for all time).”
The 50-year reanalysis data set was distributed as a CD-ROM at an AMS annual meeting. It was a precursor for other reanalysis datasets that followed, such as paleo reanalysis and climate of the 20th century.
<<The NCEP/NCAR 40-year Reanalysis Project paper was published in 1996 in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
After retiring from federal service, Kalnay returned to academia and was appointed Robert E. Lowry Chair of the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. In 1999, she joined the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland, College Park. She subsequently served as Distinguished University Professor and was an active researcher till the end.
In 2002 she published a book entitled Atmospheric Modeling, Data Assimilation and Predictability. It is now in its fifth edition, and has been translated into Chinese and Korean.
Left: Kalnay’s book, published in 2002.Center: Kalnay with Ron McPherson (left) and Louis Uccellini (right), both past AMS Presidents and former NCEP Directors, at the Symposium of the 50th Anniversary of Operational Numerical Weather Prediction, June 2004 (photo credit: NOAA NCEP). Right: Kalnayand two of her colleagues, Sumant Nigam and Zhanqing Li, were featured on the cover of the May 2004 issue of Science. The article highlighted foreign-born meteorologists from the University of Maryland, College Park’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science.
A 2010 interview in the WMO Bulletin gives us a glimpse into Kalnay’s passion for meteorology.
“I’m lucky to be working in atmospheric sciences,” she said. “It’s a fascinating subject. Working in meteorology is like working in physics, but without the danger of anybody saying, ‘So why are you doing that? What is the use?’ What we do is incredibly useful, especially since it is not national or regional, but global.”
In the past decade or so, Kalnay had been working on the leading-edge topic of climate change and sustainability, recognizing, as she and her colleagues wrote in a 2023 paper, that “the Earth is a very large and complex system that consists of human and natural components interacting bidirectionally with each other.” She and her team — which included Safa Mote and Jorge Rivas, Kalnay’s son — were extending concepts from weather forecasting, such as uncertainty, high sensitivity, and error propagation, to the coupled human-Earth system, and tackling its dynamic interactions.
Earth Day 2022: Safa Mote, Eugenia Kalnay, and Anjuli Bamzai. (Photo credit: Anjuli Bamzai)
Eugenia Kalnay was not only an active scientist who published her results in top-notch journals, she also engaged in practical applications of the science and promoted the kind of international collaborations that continue to advance atmospheric science for the benefit of global communities and economies. She was a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea and Argentine Academy of Physical Sciences, and 2009 winner of the International Meteorological Organization (IMO) Prize.
Eugenia inspired the next generation of scientists in the field, across many countries. She always maintained her academic connections to Argentina, including teaching courses and supervising research theses at the University of Buenos Aires, which granted her an honorary doctorate. She also has a women’s soccer team there named after her: Eugenia Kalnay FC!
Eugenia Kalnay was a major influence in Argentina as well as globally. Left: Kalnay (front row, second from right) with her mentor, Rolando Garcia (front row, far right) and her mentee, eminent atmospheric scientist Carolina Vera (center) in 2003, when Eugenia was designated member of the Argentina Academy of Exact and Natural Sciences. Top right: Kalnay with members of the Eugenia Kalnay football team. Bottom right: The full Eugenia Kalnay FC team. (Photo credit: Carolina Vera)
She was a beloved mentor, who was concerned not only with science but also nurturing people’s promise, collectively and individually—including advancing women in the field. An interview with the Inter-American Network of Academies of Sciences showcases some of the wisdom she left for us:
Of course, women should be in science! Why would one even think of wasting the brains of half of the scientifically inclined population?
The most important advice is to work on what you like to do, without worrying about money or recognition, which will come if you put passion in your work.
Learn to speak clearly, briefly and forcefully, and don’t allow others to interrupt you!
She was a kind a generous soul, and her unstinting generosity in providing advice, encouragement, leadership and inspiration will be missed. Her enduring legacy will be a beacon of light for generations to follow.
When I posted the sad news of her passing on the AMS Open Forum, there was an outpouring of condolences from every quarter of the globe.
Even as we grieve our loss, we celebrate her tremendous contributions and leadership.
Photos at top of post: Left: Eugenia Kalnay (photo credit: John Consoli, University of Maryland). Right: Kalnay and her son Jorge Rivas at the 2024 AMS Awards ceremony, where she received the Jagadish Shukla Earth System Predictability Prize (photo credit: AMS).
Anjuli is grateful to Katherine ‘Katie’ Pflaumer for providing useful edits.
A study in AMS journal Weather, Climate, and Society demonstrates the need to combine traditional and modern meteorological knowledge
A study published 20 August in the American Meteorological Society journal, Weather, Climate, and Society finds that traditional knowledge about nesting behaviors of the red-wattled lapwing (Vanellus indicus) is useful for helping farmers in Rajasthan, India predict seasonal rainfall—yet these nature-based indicators are less known among younger generations.
In areas like India’s southwestern Rajasthan, many farmers in tribal communities still lack access to accurate model-based weather forecasting applicable to their specific farm locations. In its place, older farmers often rely on traditional knowledge of the ecosystem around them. This includes predicting seasonal rains based on the nesting behavior of the red-wattled lapwing, a ground-nesting bird which lays its eggs near farm fields during the rainy season. For generations, some tribal farmers have used the positions of the birds’ nests and eggs for clues to help plant appropriate crops for upcoming weather conditions. But there has been relatively little scientific evidence gathered to back up this traditional knowledge, and younger farmers are less likely to rely on it—or even know about it.
A team of researchers from Agriculture University, Jodhpur and Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology studied the lapwings’ nesting behaviors at an average of 10–15 nests each year at agricultural research stations in southwestern Rajasthan. They related the behaviors to rainfall patterns and tested them against local traditional predictions.
The authors report that the field campaign supported many of the traditional predictions, especially those widely utilized indicators based on lapwing nest location, number of eggs, and the eggs’ position in the nest. For example, more eggs in the nest tended to correlate with more months of rain during the nesting season.
<< Red-wattled lapwing and (inset) a lapwing nest with four eggs. Figure 1 (a) from Bhardwaj et al. (2024).
[Note: The authors plan to publish additional data from the field study in an upcoming paper.]
“Integrating traditional knowledge with modern science can help in better understanding various climate-related parameters. Thus, our study suggests the need for a policy framework which will address the problem of the ineffective dissemination of information related to rainfall intensity and duration among local farmers, particularly in the remote rural areas, by traditional as well as modern meteorological announcements,” says Raju Lal Bhardwaj, lead author on the study.
Red-wattled lapwing nesting. Left: A lapwing with its pebble nest and three eggs; center: a lapwing nest with four eggs; right: a lapwing on its nest at an agricultural research station in Rajasthan. Photos courtesy of Raju Bhardwaj.
Weather patterns in southwestern Rajasthan are exceptionally variable, and will likely become more so with climate change. A survey conducted by the authors found that elder tribal farmers were less likely to plan their seasonal crops using “modern” meteorological forecasts. Instead, 70% used lapwing indicators to plan which fields to plant, and 85% used them to determine what crops to plant.
When nests were built at elevations higher than farm fields, farmers predicted high rainfall, planting water-tolerant monocultures like maize and sugarcane in fields with good drainage. When nests were built at elevations below farm fields and/or close to water bodies, they predicted low rainfall or drought—and therefore planted only hardy crops good for animal fodder. Years like 2017 supported such tactics: lapwings on average nested on higher ground that year; 797.5 mm of rain fell and crop yield was excellent.
Younger generations overlooked these traditional rain prediction indicators, with only 30% using lapwing indicators to help select planting locations. Younger farmers focused more on understanding data-based forecasting. In remote areas, however, they were sometimes unable to access those forecasts.
The authors suggest that lapwing nesting behaviors should be further studied and integrated into forecasting. “Modern meteorologist[s] should take advantage of the traditional knowledge of lapwing-based prediction methods that are not found in books but in the memories and experiences of elder tribal farmers,” they write. “Integrating this traditional knowledge with modern science can help in better understanding various climate-related parameters.”
Earth hit record highs in global temps, greenhouse gases, sea level, and more last year.
By AMS Staff
Last year, global high temperatures, warm oceans, and massive wildfires broke records and sparked increasing concern about climate change. Now the annual State of the Climate report, produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and peer reviewed and published by the American Meteorological Society, gives us an in-depth global picture of 2023, a year of extremes.
According to the NOAA/AMS press release, the State of the Climate report this year includes contributions from more than 590 scientists from 59 countries, and “provides the most comprehensive update on Earth’s climate indicators, notable weather events, and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments located on land, water, ice and in space.”
Below are a few highlights from 2023.
Record-high greenhouse gases (again)
Global atmospheric carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide all reached higher concentrations than ever recorded. CO2 was 419.3±0.1ppm, 2.8 ppm higher than in 2023 and 50% higher than pre-industrial levels. This is the fourth-largest recorded year-to-year rise in CO2.
Record-high global temperatures
2023 officially beat 2016’s record as the hottest year overall since records began in the 1800s, partly due to the transition from La Niña to a strong El Niño. Globally, 2023 was 0.99°–1.08°F (0.13°–0.17°C) above the 1991–2020 average. The years 2015–2023 have been the hottest nine years on record.
Global Surface Temperatures Were Above Average Across Most of the World (Plate 2.1a in State of the Climate in 2023): During 2023, much-warmer-than-average conditions were observed across most of the world’s surface, with the largest positive temperature anomalies across parts of the higher northern latitudes, shown here as areas shaded from orange to red. Limited areas experienced near-average to cooler-than-average conditions (blue shading).[Note: graphic shows 2023 average temperature anomalies above or below the 1991-2020 average global temperature.]
North America overall experienced its warmest year since records began in 1910, including a heat wave in Mexico that killed 286 people. The Caribbean also experienced its warmest recorded year, and Europe its warmest or second-warmest depending on the analysis.
In Kyoto, Japan, the cherry trees reached peak bloom on March 25, the earliest bloom in the city’s 1,200-year record. Photo: Balazs Simon on Pexels.
Record-high ocean heat
El Niño also contributed to the hottest oceans ever recorded. Mean annual global sea-surface temperature was 0.23°F (0.13°C) higher than 2016’s previous record, and August 22, 2023 saw an all-time high daily mean global sea-surface temperature of 66.18°F (18.99°C). Marine heat waves were recorded on 116 days of 2023 (vs. the previous record of 86 days in 2016) and global ocean heat content down to 2,000 feet also reached record highs.
Record-high sea levels (again)
Global mean sea level rose 8.1±1.5 mm in 2023, to reach a record 101.4 millimeters above the average from 1993, when satellite measurements began.
Massive wildfires caused by heat and drought
37 million acres of Canada burned in 2023, twice the previous record, causing evacuations for more than 232,000 people and with smoke affecting cities as far away as western Europe. Australia experienced its driest August–October since 1900, leading to millions of acres burned in bushfires in the Northern Territory. The European Union experienced its largest wildfire since 2000 (in the Alexandroupolis Municipality of Greece). Notable wildfires also occurred in Brazil, Paraguay, and in the U.S. state of Hawaii.
Warm poles and a greener Arctic
2023 was the fourth warmest year in the Arctic in the 124-year record, and the warmest recorded June–September. Sea ice reached its fifth-lowest extent in the 45-year record (with many monthly and daily records set), and multi-year ice declined. Despite above-average spring snowpack in the North American and Eurasian Arctic, rapid melting led to record and near-record lows in snow-water equivalent by June. The Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage both opened, and the Northwest Passage saw a record 42 ship transits. Arctic tundra vegetation reached its third-greenest peak in the 24-year record.
Much of Antarctica also experienced well-above-average heat. In addition, eight months, and 278 days, saw record lows in sea ice extent and area in Antarctica; daily sea ice extent on 21 February was the lowest ever recorded.
Clean infrared image of Hurricane Otis making landfall near Acapulco, Mexico. Image captured on 25 October, 2023, at 5:20 UTC, by the ABI instrument aboard the GOES-East satellite. Source: NASA Worldview.
There were 82 named tropical storms in 2023, below average. However, global accumulated cyclone energy was above average, rebounding from 2022’s record low, and there were seven Category 5 cyclones. Tropical Cyclone Freddy became the longest lived tropical cyclone on record, lasting from February 6 to March 12; it made landfall three times and caused 165 fatalities in Mozambique and 679 fatalities in Malawi due to flooding and landslides. Typhoon Doksuri/Egay was the costliest economically, causing US$18.4 billion in damages; Beijing saw its heaviest recorded rainfall and 137 residents died in flooding. Rain and floods from Storm Daniel killed at least 4,300 people in Libya. Hurricane Otis underwent the most extreme rapid intensification on record—Category 1 to Category 5 in only nine hours—and became the strongest landfalling hurricane to hit western Mexico, devastating Acapulco.
Persistent ozone hole
The stratospheric ozone hole over Antarctica appeared earlier in the year and lasted longer than normal, and reached its 16th largest extent in 44 years.
Image at top: Ice Worm Glacier in the North Cascade mountains of Washington, United States, which was under continuous annual monitoring from 1984 onward and disappeared in 2023. Large photo: The location of former Ice Worm Glacier on 13 August 2023. Inset photo: Ice Worm Glacier on 16 August 1986. Photo credits Mauri Pelto.
A new NOAA oral history archive spotlights lessons from a life in science and policy
William H. “Bill” Hooke, PhD (AMS senior policy fellow emeritus), has both led and thought a great deal about developments in weather, water, climate (WWC) and society at large over more than half a century. He worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and antecedent agencies from 1967 to 2000, including tenures as Deputy Chief Scientist and Acting Chief Scientist of NOAA, as well as Senior Scientist in the Office of the Secretary of Commerce. An honorary AMS member, he has served as a senior AMS policy fellow, associate executive director, and director of the AMS Policy Program. He founded the AMS Summer Policy Colloquium, which he directed for 21 years.
Over the course of many jobs, administrations, and scientific revolutions, Hooke developed a reputation for exceptional leadership and collaboration, for managing crucial initiatives in natural disaster reduction and national policy, and for deep and multidisciplinary insights across scientific and social fields. He has influenced the careers and lives of many people in the WWC enterprise, and won the AMS’s Joanne Simpson Mentorship Award (now the Robert H. and Joanne Simpson Mentorship Award) in 2014. Now, an oral history video series from NOAA captures some thoughts and observations from his long and vibrant career.
In a series of 30 candid conversations, Hooke talks to AMS Policy Colloquium alumna Mona Behl about his life in a family of scientists; his contributions to disaster reduction, the evolution of the WWC Enterprise, and technological innovations; and what it means to be a leader, a scientist, and a person of faith.
Watch the first video in the series
Here are a few excerpts from their rich conversations.
On luck:
“My dad was born in Chattanooga … in 1918. … The doctor told my grandmother afterwards, he said, “Mrs. Hooke, that’s the biggest baby I ever delivered whose mother lived.” And in fact [maybe] the reason I’m alive today, is that while the doctor was getting ready to tell my grandfather that he had to choose between my grandmother and my dad, my grandfather was nervously walking around outside the hospital, around the block. By the time he came back in for that consultation, my dad had been born. I’ve reflected a lot … that all of us represent just this accident of history. … We’re all lucky to be here.”
On his childhood and his family’s academic legacy:
“When [my grandfather, who received his PhD from the Sorbonne] came back to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, he and my grandmother used to have a salon. … People would smoke cigars, and faculty members from the university would come over, and there was just this great conversation and a lot of laughter and so on. As a kid, every time I visited, we’d get to see this scene and participate in it and actually come to like the smell of cigar smoke, although I never smoked. … It was just quite a scene. A spectacular thing to see growing up.”
“[My father, Robert Hooke,] was very interested in problems that were tough to solve. … He thought most of the interesting problems in the world didn’t have solutions. He used to say things like, “Linear problems are all the same. Nonlinear problems are always different.” … The one patent he ever got was for something called Direct Search, which was looking for optima when there was no formula for them.”
“[Getting a PhD in geophysical sciences] was a lack of imagination. Here I was in this tribe of scientists, and it never occurred to me to be anything else. … I woke up with a PhD and thought, ‘Now what?’”
On his early career:
“I never got the job I applied for, and I never turned down one that was offered. … So, I took this job at the Ionospheric Telecommunications Laboratory [in 1967]. … [But when Nixon created NOAA, my boss transferred me to] the Wave Propagation Lab. That was cutting-edge. … [Gordon Little, who ran the lab,] realized that remote sensing was the key to learning about … the atmosphere, the oceans, the solid Earth. … All of these technologies – acoustic sounding, weather radar, Doppler lidar, other techniques, radiometry – were in their infancy, and nothing worked. So, when things started to work, they’d start seeing atmospheric phenomena that nobody had ever seen before … If you had half a brain, you could wander around and you were seeing things that nobody had seen and applying simple ideas to them, and they worked.”
On learning how to manage and lead:
“[Gordon Little] didn’t care much about the Geoacoustics group [at the Wave Propagation Lab] so he put me in charge.] … Well, in our group, we always had a brown bag lunch every day. … The conversation would usually move on, oblivious to whatever I was trying to say. But that lunch [after Little announced the change] … I said something [and] there was this hush that fell over the group. Wow. I realized, from now on, I’m walking in a hall of mirrors. People are only going to show me the side that they think I’m going to like. It was a very important moment for me … One of the things that you learn is, the higher you go … you have to get gentler and gentler and gentler if you really want people to open up to you and for the group to be vibrant the way it should be.”
“If [a leader’s dream is] a small dream, if it’s like, “Hey, we’re going to do this, and a small number of us will get rich.” … It can’t be a shabby dream. People are put off by that. The second thing is it’s got to be a shared dream. … If you don’t share your ideas, they get smaller and smaller and less relevant and really kind of a grotesque version of what they were meant to be. But if you share your ideas, then other people riff on them, and … it actually generates ideas. … People want to be around you. You’re not a sink for thought; you’re a source of it.”
On advice for early career scientists:
“If you’re an early career scientist, you live in a world that encourages you to be anxious and stressed and to feel insecure, maybe even fearful. … [But] the world is hungry for talent. We just have unlimited needs for brain power right now. Brain power is in very short supply, and if you have … something to offer, people are standing in line to harness it and to work with you. It’s just a message that young people need to hear, and they can’t hear it enough.”
On legacy and achievements:
“I have a very dim view of my achievements. … I had the very good fortune to work with just brilliant people. … There’s so much you can do to stifle creativity and innovation, but trying to [instead] stay out of the way of people who are in that business; that means working up the ladder to make that [innovative work] possible for those people. … You need to just be saying thank you and encouraging people day in and day out, hour in and hour out, and you add it up after forty, fifty years, and it has an accumulated effect.”
“I’ve worked with a lot of people who made great contributions to improving weather and climate warnings, but I probably had nothing to do with that myself. … I led efforts where great progress was made. … In particular, a lot of work in small-scale weather, short-term weather, aviation weather, things of that sort. Those were, again, things [that] groups I managed worked on. Made a lot of progress on those things, but it was wonderfully sharp people who did it, and I just kind of went along.”
On civil service:
“The work we’re engaged in is a high calling. I got interested in science because I was good at it, and it was fun. It became serious business, particularly after I got into the hazards work, starting with that Academy panel I was on in 1986, the one that set up the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. … The people were just high-minded people. I saw a lot to admire in the people I was involved with.”
“One piece of advice that I’d give every NOAA employee. … You should take a lot of satisfaction from your role as a civil servant in NOAA and what you’re contributing to society. It’s very easy to see all the things and all the dysfunction and the budget problems … [and] interagency squabbles and the rest of it. … You should just be strong about the value of what you’re doing.”
On the philosophy of science, AI, and innovation:
“Scientists, we might be unique in our difficulty at understanding that we’re not pure. [laughter] We struggle so much to work on the objective part and the experiments in the lab … that we forget that science is a human construct … You have to think a lot more about the human purposes and the human goals and so on. … With artificial intelligence[,] I think we’re all seeing in a vague sort of way, “Wow, this has so much potential for both good and evil.” I don’t think there’s been a moment since the construction of nuclear weapons that people have been [so] apprehensive about the steps we’re now taking. These are steps that have nothing to do with science as we understand it; it has everything to do with humanity. We don’t trust ourselves … to control this science for the benefit and use of life versus those inferior things – fame and power, money and so on – that [Francis] Bacon spoke of.”
“When it comes to science that matters … you want multiple paths to it. You want redundancy. One of the things I fought all my career was this bureaucratic tendency to try to reduce duplication in science, and overlap, and I kept thinking, ‘No. On innovation, you want to be doing as much as you can afford.’”
“AI will probably exacerbate this [current breakdown of social trust] to some extent. … I think we’re in for … a Wild West kind of frontier-like period [in which] wonderful things and horrible things are going to happen at a higher rate of speed than usual. Human beings are going to have a period of trying to deal with that. I think that’s why, to me, it’s getting more and more important that we learn how to be forgiving.”
“Tom [Durham] had written just a stellar disaster preparedness strategy for the State of Tennessee. … Tom had a lot of expertise, and he brought it to bear on this very thoughtful strategy and worked with people to develop it and get started implementing different aspects of it. … That would be the kind of thing that more people could do if aided by artificial intelligence.”
“When I was still living out of Boulder … we had some huge thunderstorms moving rapidly through the Denver area. There was a small echo up in Cheyenne, Wyoming, that didn’t seem worth paying much attention to. Well, it stayed put for six hours … [and] one or two people drowned when the flooding occurred. That’s the kind of thing that an artificial intelligence system might be better at capturing, that kind of alertness and just looking for a detail … that other people might miss. So, I think AI really changes the possibilities for good if we have good intentions and look for ways to harness it. … It’s going to be fun to sort it out. But I think it really changes things.”
On confronting environmental change:
“To get out of the pickle that we’re in with regard to climate change and broader environmental issues … we have to be good as much as we have to understand the science of things. … We’ve got eight billion people playing some version of [game theory] – lack of trust, lack of forgiveness, lack of tolerance. [And] there’s a lot of complacency about all the aggression that we’re visiting on others. … I’ve been very interested in the whole rise of the diversity, equity, inclusion kind [of thing] because it seems to me it’s getting at this … at the level that it really needs to get at it.”
“We are each responsible for fixing it, whatever the problem is. That doesn’t mean changing history; you can’t do that. It is what it is. It means a path forward. … We have to work on the problem all of us together, and that’s eight billion of us. Everybody has something to offer. Everybody has something to regret. It’s our job right now. It’s the 21st-century task. … Suppose you decide that your task in life is to be responsible for the renewal of the world versus your task in life is to document the collapse of the world. Choosing the second one over the first is a poor trade [laughter] in so many ways.”
On his work in natural disaster reduction/resilience:
“The Subcommittee for Natural Disaster Reduction was under this Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. … We felt that our goal was really to try to build US resilience. … It’s really people who were disadvantaged, to begin with, who are hurt most by natural disasters when they occur … I think I told you I’ve always been interested in political science … But it just got to be a much richer thing after that. … I went from feeling excited about what I was doing because it was just so interesting, to feeling each day that I could help make the world a better place.”
“A lot of interest in the government [at the time was on climate change] – this was the Clinton Administration … If you were working on natural hazards, you were struck by [the sense] that the planet really did much of its business through extreme events. These averages that were of so much concern were the averages of extremes of heat and cold, extremes of precipitation and drought. … [Today] we see people putting those two things together.”
“The President looks at a certain number of disaster declarations over the year … But for each of the local officials, it’s life-changing. … the incentives for thinking ahead locally for events like this are just so much stronger than the incentives for a President of the United States to look at these matters. I continue to feel that the best thing to do would be [to] give people at the local level more tools for dealing with this.”
On the AMS Policy Program and Policy Colloquium:
“I was minding my own business. In the year 2000, I was thinking I had about ten or fifteen more years to go in government … I got invited downtown to the DC offices of the American Meteorological Society by Ron McPherson, who was the executive director at the time, and Dick Greenfield, who was standing up this new thing called the AMS Policy Program. … They asked me, ‘Well, when could you start?’ And I said, ‘Two weeks.’ [laughter]”
“I had basically a year to kind of get [the AMS Summer Policy Colloquium] ready and got it started in [2001]. … One of the things I found out pretty early was all the congressional staffers, policy officials in the government, and so on – they were looking for something like this, too, and they were skeptical that maybe the AMS could deliver … But after they came the first time and saw how bright the Colloquium participants were … the speakers just thought, “What a great group. What a great format. All this time for discussion” and so on. Sometimes, they’d come early and hear their colleagues’ lectures or stay late for another colleague’s lecture. That added kind of to the vibe. They’d ask questions as part of the discussion. It was, thanks to the participants, really lively.”
“The Colloquium was a way of showing people that the real world wasn’t operating on the basis of the Navier-Stokes equations, or the rules of radiative transfer, or plasma physics, or whatever – it was working on heuristics, conjecture, power and courage, and trust and faith, and a whole bunch of things on which all those equations are silent. … [As scientists,] we’re not used to being as disciplined in our approach to the policy process as we are to science. This was an effort to overcome that. … I really think the whole thing was a tribute to, again, just the passion that the science leadership of this country, government agencies, and staffers on the Hill had for it and the quality of the participants that were coming in … The people made it all work. … It was just a privilege to be part of it for two decades and to just watch this sweep of intellect, energy, and talent go by.”
On retiring (or not):
“My uncle “retired” in his fifties and moved back to North Carolina. But at the age of eighty-something, he was still getting research grants from DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] to do these non-fusion applications of plasmas. He was part owner of a drugstore on the main street in North Carolina. … He would do his physics there in the diner and kind of go over to the university … He was the inspiration to me. I kind of felt as long as my uncle was still working, who was thirteen years older than I was, I ought to be working, too. Only I did it in a more formal way and I’m just tremendously happy I did. These last twenty years or so of my career were the best by far.”
NOAA Heritage Oral History Project aims to document the history and legacy of NOAA through compelling interviews with its leaders. These firsthand accounts provide an invaluable resource that preserves NOAA’s significant contributions to environmental research and management, fostering a deeper understanding of NOAA’s vital role in shaping our understanding of the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. Learn more here.
A session highlight from the 51st Conference on Broadcast Meteorology/7th Conference on Weather Warnings and Communication
By Katie Pflaumer, AMS staff
The ocean looked aggressive. It was 6:45 a.m. on June 13 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and my weather app was warning me about the possibilities of dangerous currents. A coastal hazard statement was in effect.
The waves—dark under early-morning cloud—pulled and crashed messily, much stronger than they’d been the day before. Some were coming in at an angle, bending southward down the beach. Whitecaps littered the water’s surface and the air was loud with the waves and wind.
Bruckner Chase was thrilled. “These are exactly the kinds of conditions we’re trying to teach you about,” he said.
I’d met up with him on the beach, along with his NOAA Wave Safe program colleagues Dr. Michelle Evans-Chase and Patrick Roach, other AMS staff, and several broadcast meteorologists who’d signed up for the “Blue IQ: Water, Waves, Weather and Coastal Safety” course at the 51st Conference on Broadcast Meteorology/Seventh Conference on Weather Warnings and Communication. It was an unusual meeting session, organized to help weather communicators—especially broadcast meteorologists—better engage with the public about beach safety.
What follows are a few takeaways from that morning, and from a later Weather Band webinar that recapped the session.
As we walked gradually towards the surf, our discussion focused on the three “zones” of ocean safety—the safe zone, the awareness zone, and the impact zone. There are important things to pay attention to in all three.
Safe Zone
The safe zone—far back from where any waves might reach—is a place to take inventory and get the lay of the land, as well as making sure you have all the supplies you may need.
Bruckner Chase (center) and Patrick Roach talk to BlueIQ participants in the Safe Zone. Photo: AMS staff.
Wait and Watch. The ocean, as Chase noted, is a constantly changing environment. The most important thing you can do is to pay attention. “Every beach is different [and due to tidal changes], that beach is also different from morning to afternoon,” said Chase during the webinar. “[If] you’ve got a sandbar that was under 3 feet of water and is now under 6 inches … now it’s become dangerous.”
Note any hazards (like piers or areas where waves are breaking strangely) and think about the height, direction, and roughness of the waves. Wind direction will impact wave behavior, and winds coming from the ocean or along the beach can make for more challenging conditions. Take time to observe what’s happening.
“Many people will look [at the waves] for a minute or two and go, oh, it’s fine. I watch the water 10 to 15 minutes at least, because waves will come in sets, conditions will change, it’s not always the same.”
—Bruckner Chase
Listen to the Experts. Lifeguards and surfers are often great sources for information about your beach. Always swim near lifeguards and pay attention to any signs or messaging about when and where you can swim safely.
Weather Aware. Conditions at the nearest weather reporting station may not reflect conditions at the coast. For example, in early summer, cold water and warm air can create dense fog right along the beach. “It can get to where you can’t see the shore,” said Michelle Evans-Chase. Weather communicators can help make their audience aware of these possible localized events.
Yet the general weather forecast is still important. If a storm is approaching, for example, people need to know to get out of the water and off the beach, as lightning can strike miles ahead of a storm.
Hazards and Tides. Your weather forecast office may also issue information about beach hazards. They had done so for Myrtle Beach today: strong longshore currents (running parallel to the beach) were highly likely, and rip currents (which can pull swimmers out towards the ocean) were moderately likely. Weather reports may also list the times of high and low tide, which can dramatically impact water conditions due to depth changes across sand bars or submerged hazards. Be careful around inlets when the tide is changing; strong tidal-driven currents may funnel through calm-appearing waters.
From our vantage point the day of the session, we could see signs of the longshore current scrambling the waves. Beach forecasts often include rip current risk, but longshore currents can also be very dangerous, sweeping you down the beach and making it hard to get back to shore. If you’re on a small beach surrounded by more challenging terrain, such a current could even drag you past the safe landing area. A final note on the safe zone: Make sure you know where it actually is. “Sneaker” waves—unusually large waves—may come much farther up the beach than expected. On rocky shorelines (common in the Pacific Northwest), these waves can pull people off the rocks into very cold water. The same can happen on piers and jetties. Even if a vantage point appears safe, heed any signage telling you not to go out there, and always pay attention to what’s happening in the water.
Awareness Zone
Once you walk closer to the surf, you’ll have a better sense of what your ocean experience will be like. When our little class left the area of the dunes, we were less shielded from the wind, and the waves seemed louder and taller than when we’d looked at them from above. Chase had us all lie down near the edge of the water, noting how large two- or three-foot waves can seem once you’re in them. Getting hit by even a smallish wave at the wrong angle can cause serious injury, so never underestimate surf.
“If … it’s your first trip to the beach, two feet doesn’t sound like much. … But a mass of water moving at you every six seconds that’s two feet high is a lot different and harder to navigate.”
—Bruckner Chase
Blue IQ session participants lie down at the edge of the water for a different perspective on the day’s waves. Photo: AMS staff.
Prepare to get in the water by orienting yourself. Line yourself up with a very specific landmark—pick something colorful and uniquely shaped that you can look back and easily identify (we used the water slide in front of our hotel). This is also important in an emergency, as EMS will need to know where to enter the beach to get to you.
Impact Zone
The impact zone, more technically known as the swash zone, is where waves are washing up on the sand and receding. This is where you’re getting into the water.
Be Prepared. Depending on water temperature, be prepared for a cold shock that could impact motor function. As Chase reminded us, “If you’re in a dangerous situation [and numb from the cold], you may lose the ability to effectively move out of it.” Be aware that the beach can drop off rapidly, and you could suddenly find yourself deeper than expected.
Move Efficiently. Chase outlined techniques for making efficient progress through the surf and conserving energy. Walking in sideways means less of your body has to fight through a wave. Diving underneath approaching waves can be another good way to make progress; things are much more peaceful under the water. Stick your fingers in the sand to make sure you go deep enough and to help you stay oriented.
Remain Calm. Chase’s techniques worked well, yet we all struggled to get out into waist deep water the morning of the session. The longshore current pulled relentlessly, and the waves—which hit us every few seconds as they piled up close to shore—made me grateful to be surrounded by trained lifeguards. Even with our feet mostly on the ground, we were soon swept 30-40 meters down the beach. If we’d gone out further, the currents might have made it hard to get back in.
Blue IQ session participants wade in waist-deep water. Photo: AMS staff.
If you’re caught in a rip current, standard advice is to swim perpendicular to the direction the current is moving you to escape this narrow, ocean flowing band of water (which will normally weaken once you get further out). Then, carefully swim at an angle towards the shore, always being aware of large waves that may be coming up behind you.
If you’re struggling in a longshore/long beach current, however, the best course of action is to head directly for the beach, which will be perpendicular to that current. Don’t worry too much about exiting the water exactly where you started—just get out where you can. Chase noted that while many people have heard what to do in a rip current, few are aware of the strength of longshore currents that can move you hundreds of yards or more along a beach.
Even if you’re a strong swimmer in the pool, don’t expect to feel equally strong and fast in the ocean, even on a calm day. “Most swimmers are going to have trouble navigating these dynamic conditions and feeling as comfortable in the surf as they do at their local swimming pool,” Chase told us. So the key thing to remember in a dangerous situation is: relax. Stay calm and use your energy tactically. “Give people time to come and help you, for the EMS system to be activated, for a lifeguard to come and find you.” If you see someone in trouble, take 10 seconds to alert a lifeguard or 911 and find productive ways to help. Watch the NOAA Wave Safe “Take 10” video.
No matter what beach you go to, the philosophy is, respect the ocean. “Even if you’ve been visiting the same beach for 10 years and you know that break and you’re comfortable sending your kids out there, one nor’easter or one storm can dramatically change that,” said Chase. “So it’s not just [that] each beach is different, which it very much is, but that beach can also change from hour to hour and definitely from year to year.”
Learn More
Share NOAA’s Wave Safe videos to help your friends and family, or the public at large, understand beach safety concepts.
The 51st Conference on Broadcast Meteorology and Seventh Conference on Weather Warnings and Communication took place in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on 12-14 June, 2024, hosted by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). The 51st Conference on Broadcast Meteorology is organized by the AMS Board on Broadcast Meteorology and invites broadcast meteorologists from across the United States to network and share professional knowledge. The Seventh Conference on Weather Warnings and Communication features cutting-edge research on weather communication strategies, challenges, and impacts, and is organized by the AMS Board on Societal Impacts.
By Jacob Snyder, PhD Student, Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Note: This is a guest blog post; it represents the views of the author alone and not the American Meteorological Society or the AMS Policy Program. The Science Policy Colloquium is non-partisan and non-prescriptive, and promotes understanding of the policy process, not any particular viewpoint(s).
“No water, no life. No blue, no green.” In 2020 — the first year of my undergraduate at Penn State — I met Dr. Sylvia Alice Earle, a trailblazing oceanographer and former chief scientist of NOAA. After hearing her words and learning the breadth of what she accomplished while working at the interface of science, policy, and community, I was inspired to begin my journey as a marine scientist. Since then, my experiences in ocean research and LGBTQIA+ advocacy have continued to inspire my long-term goal of collaborating with policymakers and historically overburdened communities to co-produce inclusive ocean management. Now, as a first-year PhD student in Marine Biology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, I seek ways to further the impact of my science and advocacy through policy. The 2024 AMS Science Policy Colloquium provided the necessary training to begin my deep dive into the political realm.
Diving Deeper
This year’s Colloquium brought together graduate students, university faculty, private-sector workers, and federal managers to learn about the structure of the U.S. government and how to integrate science into the legislative process. We heard from speakers working at the science-policy interface, and many of their words resonated with me, but two statements really shaped my perspective of policy: (1) all politics is local and (2) carry your most authentic self into your work.
The Colloquium began with an impactful overview of science policy. Our opening speaker commented that “all politics is local,” emphasizing the power of the community — and individual — in implementing widespread change if they can access avenues to inform policy decisions. I know that such avenues are essential for ocean policy: the most valuable knowledge for political officials discussing ocean-related legislation comes from communities and individuals who form intimate relationships with the environment, such as cultural practitioners, land stewards, and scientists.
As a scientist, this has encouraged me to think about how to translate my research into deliverables that are relevant to both the community and the legislature, especially since my dissertation focuses on a local scale. My research centers on building a model to predict the effect of sediment runoff and herbivorous fish community composition on coral reef ecosystem resilience. Investigating the local stressor of sedimentation, and using those findings to inform policy decisions, can provide pathways to improve the resilience of ocean ecosystems in the near-term, as we continue to tackle long-term global threats, such as ocean warming and acidification.
Not only did I learn about the power of scientists to inform legislation, but I also learned about the need for scientists to be legislators themselves. Out of 535Members of the 118th Congress, there are only fivescientists and nineengineers. This lack of representation means there is a dire need for scientists to bring both their science and their selves into the legislature.
This truth was also highlighted by another speaker who urged us to carry our authentic selves into our work. Throughout the week, some of the most valuable lessons I gained were from personal conversations with fellow Colloquium participants, during which we talked about them as researchers, not just their research. Learning alongside my peers and collaborating with them for our mock legislative exercise emphasized that the broader the diversity of life and thought actively engaged in decision-making processes, the more effective solutions can be.
I also gleaned this at my undergraduate institution, the Pennsylvania State University, while collaborating with LGBTQIA+ advocacy groups to promote students’ rights to live healthily and authentically. The community I discovered through Queer and Trans+ advocacy helped me realize my inherent worth as a Queer person, which has allowed me to confidently enter spaces that historically overlook me, such as STEM and policy. I have also been fortunate to have STEM mentors from overburdened communities who are shining examples of carrying yourself into your work. When I enter marine science spaces, I bring with me all of my peers and mentors who have built me up in my Queerness. Now, I intend to bring myself, them, and my science into the legislature.
Changing the Tides
Throughout my brief career in marine science, I have been regularly reminded of the wide-reaching detrimental impact of humans on the ocean. Coral reefs blanketed in sediment, historic records of fisheries crashes, plastic debris floating past my research vessel in the remote Pacific Ocean — 1,000 miles from the nearest population center. This is a testament to the need for a radical shift in our relationship with the ocean — a change achievable through community and policy. The 2024 AMS Science Policy Colloquium reminded me that I — a young, Queer scientist just beginning their policy journey — can be a part of this change.
Thank You
I am very grateful for Dr. Paul Higgins, Emma Tipton, and Isabella Herrera for coordinating my transformative experience at the 2024 AMS Science Policy Colloquium. Also a huge thank you to Dr. Mariana Rocha de Souza for introducing me to this opportunity and guiding me throughout the application process, and to my lab, Dr. Lisa C. McManus’ Marine Ecological Theory Lab, for their support!
Featured image: Jacob Snyder in front of the U.S. Capitol Building. Photo credit: Joseph Rotondo.
About the AMS Science Policy Colloquium
The AMS Science Policy Colloquium is an intensive and non-partisan introduction to the United States federal policy process for scientists and practitioners. Participants meet with congressional staff, officials from the executive office of the President, and leaders from executive branch agencies. They learn first-hand about the interplay of policy, politics, and procedure through legislative exercises. Alumni of this career-shaping experience have gone on to serve in crucial roles for the nation and the scientific community including the highest levels of leadership in the National Weather Service, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), and AMS itself.
Greenfield, Doppler on Wheels, and what happens where a twister meets the ground
By Katie Pflaumer, AMS Staff
Featured image: The Greenfield tornado, south of the town. Photo credit: Lauren Baca.
On 21 May, 2024, a powerful tornado hit the town of Greenfield, Iowa. A mobile team from the NSF BEST project was able to capture radar and instrument data, measuring one-second gusts among the highest ever recorded. Karen Kosiba, PhD, Principal Investigator (PI) of the BEST project, and Jen Walton, founder of AMS partner organization Girls Who Chase, were both part of the team who intercepted the Greenfield tornado. We spoke with them about what it was like, and what their valuable data might yield.
The tornado that hit Greenfield was fast, narrow, and violent, cutting a 44-mile path through southwestern Iowa. Moving into town from the southwest, it had already destroyed wind turbines and family farms, with multiple vortices visibly rotating around its center.
But as it neared Greenfield, where it would kill five people, the tornado was obscured by a cloak of rain. Racing toward the town with her colleagues, Jen Walton told me, “We could see nothing but a wall of white ahead of us.” They were trying to put themselves right in the path of a hidden monster.
Karen Kosiba wouldn’t have seen it anyway, although she was less than a quarter of a mile from the vortex. “I [almost] never look out the window,” she told me. Her attention was glued to the radar screen. As Principal Investigator on the NSF-funded BEST (Boundary-layer Evolution and Structure of Tornadoes) project, her job was to track the path of the tornado on radar so their team could get close enough to obtain high-resolution dual-Doppler radar and weather instrument data of the tornadic winds closest to the surface of the earth.
They had sped through Greenfield, and her mobile radar vehicle was now parked just to the east of town, hoping for a clear line of sight in the hilly, tree-covered terrain. “I’m operating the radar, we’re basically scanning through this [storm], tracing the path of the tornado, and it was getting more and more obvious it was going to go through Greenfield,” she said.
Dr. Karen Kosiba reading the radar screen in a DOW vehicle. Photo credit: Jen Walton/FARM Facility.
DOW(n) Low with Tornadoes
Obtaining high-resolution data from tornadoes is incredibly difficult using stationary instruments and radars — especially for near-surface conditions. The earth’s curvature and obstacles like trees and topography mean that far-away radars simply can’t get a good view of where a twister meets the ground. Also, because of beam spreading, far away radars have worse spatial resolution. Josh Wurman invented the Doppler on Wheels (DOW) network of truck-mounted Doppler radars — now part of the University of Illinois’ Flexible Array of Radars and Mesonets (FARM) Facility — in the 1990s to address challenges like these. DOWs have been used all over the world to look at everything from hurricanes to flooding and wildfires.
FARM missions currently involve some combination of their four DOWs, a variety of support vehicles equipped with mesonets, and quickly deployable weather stations (Pods), as well as weather balloon-borne instrumentation. The equipment has advanced greatly since the ’90s, Kosiba says. “We scan fast, with really short gates that get us fine-resolution … dual-pol data, which is important for understanding debris signatures and inferring microphysics.”
The BEST project (which Kosiba co-leads with Wurman) deploys DOWs, Pods, and weather balloons to study boundary-layer tornado winds. “We’re looking at … near-surface wind profiles, and how those vary as a function of tornado structure,” said Kosiba. “We’re also looking at thermodynamics — the relative humidity and temperature, more or less buoyant air, where it originates from — and how that affects tornado intensity, structure, and longevity. Is [the tornado] intensifying, weakening, going on for a long or short time?” It’s the kind of assignment the DOWS were made for.
“Some, rare, observations show that tornado winds can exceed 300 mph, and that the most intense winds are very near the ground, where they are especially hard to measure. In order to mitigate the hazards posed by tornadoes, it is critical to better understand their basic structure and intensity.”
As TV screens and tornado sirens blared warnings to the town of Greenfield, the BEST team frantically tried to find a place to deploy as the tornado bore down.
“It was evolving too quickly,” Kosiba told me. One DOW raced to get about 10 miles out, while Kosiba’s DOW truck tried to get closer — and Jen Walton and colleagues went even closer to the tornado, attempting to drop a Pod. Pods are placed in the projected path of the tornado, with the hope that they will obtain surface wind observations from within the radius of maximum winds. Positioning the Pod was difficult with a storm moving at close to 45 mph.
“As we drove back west toward Greenfield … it was absolutely pouring, making it difficult to make out any features of the tornado-producing storm entering town. But as we pulled up and began to deploy the Pod, the rain bands took on a left-to-right motion indicative of rotation,” said Walton. “That’s when we knew we were in the bear’s cage — chaser slang for the mesocyclone portion of a supercell where a tornado can typically be found, if there is one. As we took GPS coordinates and prepared to depart, debris began falling slantwise out of the rain. We knew it was time to go.”
As it turned out, the Pod team wasn’t the only group having a close encounter. Kosiba’s DOW vehicle ended up directly in the path of a weaker tornado that was forming as they collected data near Greenfield. “The storm was going through a cyclic thing, and there was a new tornado forming very near us. It got windy and rainy.” Although they noticed this in real-time, there wasn’t much they could do except keep collecting data. Luckily, the tornado strengthened after it passed their location.
As so often happens with this work, for Kosiba at least, there was no time even to be nervous. “Tornadoes are so fast, and you’re so focused on getting people in the right place, in a safe place, and getting the data, so there’s no time to think about anything other than that.”
What was harrowing was driving into Greenfield once the tornado had passed. “There’s clearly a path of destruction … In that narrow region [where the tornado went through], it was pretty raked over. People were still coming out of their houses, animals were still trying to get oriented.”
Damage from the Greenfield tornado. Left: The town of Greenfield. Right: Wind turbines destroyed by the tornado before it reached Greenfield. Photos courtesy of the FARM Facility.
Rare Data from a Disaster
The radar data from the BEST team is high-resolution enough that researchers will be able to examine how specific structures in Greenfield failed in the high winds. “Measuring low-level winds very close to a town is very rare … we can see in a very localized area what these structures experienced,” Kosiba said. These grim analyses could assist damage assessors after future storms, and perhaps even help those building and maintaining man-made structures to make them safer.
“We’re in the preliminary stages of inventorying what we’ve got and what we can do,” said Kosiba. “But it’s a rich and unusual dataset.”
DOW8 vehicle in Greenfield after the tornado’s passage. Photo credit: Maiana Hanshaw/FARM Facility.
Strongest Winds Ever?
During the storm, the team was concerned only with acquiring good data. When they actually looked at the Greenfield readings, however, they were surprised to note winds of around 270 miles per hour, with gusts well above that. These one-second wind speeds are difficult to pinpoint exactly, said Kosiba, as the particles measured by radar — “debris, raindrops, grass, two-by-fours” — are all moving differently through the air and at different angles to the radar beam. “We’re trying to give a range, which puts this event at 309–318 mph.” The two strongest known tornadoes, El Reno in 2013 and Bridge Creek in 1999, both had DOW-measured wind speeds within that range.
Yet the Greenfield tornado was “only” deemed an EF4 by the National Weather Service (indicating three-second wind speeds up to 200 mph). This is likely because the EF scale is based on the structural damage a tornado leaves, not radar/instrument measurements. To receive the highest rating, EF5, a tornado has to damage structures to a degree that only an EF5 could. “It’s possible there was nothing [in its path] that could have sustained an EF5 level of damage,” said Kosiba.
In addition, the highest wind gusts measured by the DOW team were for very short intervals, often less than one second, rather than longer-period averages. Due to the relative dearth of close-up measurements, we don’t know enough to say how unusual such high wind speeds near the surface really are.
Chasing the Data
“Twisters,” the long-anticipated sequel to the 1996 movie “Twister,” has hit movie screens, highlighting the awe of dangerous storms–and the divisions sometimes drawn between scientific researchers and those who chase storms because it’s their passion. As researchers and storm chasers who work together to get vital information about tornadoes, what do Kosiba and Walton think?
Jen Walton deploys a Pod of weather instruments in the path of the Greenfield tornado. Photo credit: BEST/FARM Facility.
“In my opinion, storm chasers are fonts of historical knowledge and expertise that are underutilized by the scientific community, and this is something I’m discussing with AMS and the broader research community,” said Walton. “We get a bad rap for being adrenaline junkies seeking our next thrill, and of course some folks are. But many people, myself included, would love to have more tangible ways to contribute in addition to already serving as eyes on the ground for the National Weather Service and/or working with local broadcast meteorologists. When Karen mentioned the opportunity to support the BEST Project, I jumped at the opportunity to use my own knowledge and expertise to contribute to work I know will truly make a difference in peoples’ lives – and even though my 2024 looked very different than a typical season, my time in the field with the DOWs is an experience I wouldn’t trade.”
“This kind of data collection is high risk but high payoff. You have to be out in the field to do it,” said Kosiba. “People who storm chase can make very valuable parts of the scientific team. Jen knows storm structure and forecasting … We want people who know what they’re looking at, who can think about exits; they need to be able to make some autonomous decisions out there. … If you just have a textbook understanding of storms, you have to get ramped up [on the practical side]. But people who’ve been looking at these storms for a long time and making decisions, that’s a great skill.”
To learn more about Girls Who Chase, listen to podcast interviews with experts like Dr. Kosiba, or even start your storm chasing education, check out girlswhochase.com.
By Akanksha Singh, Graduate Student in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park
Note: This is a guest blog post; it represents the views of the author alone and not the American Meteorological Society or the AMS Policy Program. The Science Policy Colloquium is non-partisan and non-prescriptive, and promotes understanding of the policy process, not any particular viewpoint(s).
I moved to the United States in 2019 to pursue my PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Maryland. As a scientist, I have always been passionate about the potential of science to positively transform lives worldwide. Growing up and being trained in the Global South, I have witnessed firsthand the profound effects of environmental changes. The Global North (definition) is primarily responsible for the excess CO2 in the atmosphere, considering historical emissions. However, it is the Global South that disproportionately suffers from the impacts of climate change caused by these emissions. This unfair burden underscores the need for environmental justice and policies not only locally but also globally. Therefore, I was excited to attend the AMS Science Policy Colloquium (SPC) to learn how an immigrant scientist like myself can navigate the U.S. policy process and conduct research that helps hold the U.S. accountable for its impact on the Global South.
During one talk, I found myself particularly interested in an account of a famous World War II-era debate between Vannevar Bush, author of “Science, the Endless Frontier,” and West Virginia Senator Harley Kilgore about how government-funded research should be managed and directed. Bush advocated for funding the “best” scientists to pursue research, without specific social aims, whereas Kilgore pushed for more equitably distributed funding for research, with a focus on addressing urgent social problems. Bush’s viewpoint ultimately prevailed, leading to the creation of the National Science Foundation, which emphasizes and advances his merit-based approach.
However, this debate made me wonder: how do we define merit? How do we determine who the “best” scientists are, particularly in the context of climate science? As several speakers noted, research funding and university resources are overwhelmingly concentrated in wealthy, coastal, urban areas. As a result, climate research often fails to fully consider all relevant stakeholders, particularly to the detriment of rural, marginalized, and indigenous populations. How can we ensure that the contributions of indigenous knowledge systems are valued and integrated into scientific research? How do we bridge the rural-urban disparity in research opportunities and resources to foster a more inclusive and comprehensive approach to addressing global challenges like climate change? Can we reimagine how NSF funding is granted to develop a more equitable solution?
Left: Akanksha at the SPC’s 2024 Hooke Lecture in Science and Society (Photo: AMS staff).Right: Akanksha at the U.S. Capitol(Photo: Akanksha Singh).
We also learned a lot about the growing political divide across the United States, and how it has led to a significant decrease in the productivity of both the House and the Senate. The number of swing districts has dwindled significantly, and ideological divisions over relevant topics have grown steep and bitter, raising concerns about the future of science policy and legislature. This subject is particularly pertinent as a number of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have limited the authority of federal agencies, most notably the EPA. If federal agencies are increasingly limited in their power to direct science policy, and Congress is too gridlocked to pass necessary legislation, how will we promote and direct scientific advancement as a nation?
Changing topics, I was surprised by many speakers’ focus on China as a significant economic and national security threat, and how these concerns manifested as suspicion of Chinese scientists. While I understand that many of these concerns are valid, as an Asian immigrant and a member of the scientific community, it is upsetting to hear fellow scientists portrayed as a threat. As future policymakers, we must oppose such rhetoric. Immigrant scientists have significantly advanced American science and form the backbone of our scientific community. Targeting them with suspicion and xenophobic rhetoric is not only unjust but also detrimental to our scientific progress.
That being said, I appreciated other speakers’ suggestions that we view China as the most important international scientific collaborator for the United States, and that the best scientific advancements come from collaboration and a sense of global good. I agree that changing our attitudes towards China and advancing science peacefully should be our goal, especially when forming policies to combat climate change. Climate change does not differentiate between nationalities and it does not respect borders; as scientists, neither should we.
I was struck by one thing I felt was missing from the SPC: there was no discussion of the military-industrial complex, its impact on science policy, and how relying on for-profit defense contractors for funding will never lead to equitable scientific advancements. While I understand the need for private investments, I think it’s high time we push for the triple bottom line—economic, social, and environmental considerations—when calculating the success of a project, rather than focusing solely on economic profitability, especially when these ventures ultimately profit from conflict and involve large amounts of unregulated and untracked greenhouse gas emissions.
Overall, I had a fantastic time at the AMS Science Policy Colloquium. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to engage with a diverse group of individuals involved in the formidable U.S. science policy space. It was also wonderful to interact with fellow attendees, fostering collaborations and connections that will last a lifetime. I’ve gained a deeper appreciation for the challenges of science policy and have come to recognize the importance and necessity of compromise in achieving progress. My research focuses on understanding tropospheric ozone chemistry and conveying that into policy-relevant tropospheric ozone reduction strategies. In this regard, the SPC has helped me understand the priorities of key stakeholders in the policy making and implementation process, as well as the importance of translating scientific research into policy directives. This SPC has also encouraged me to pursue a career in science policy and/or environmental justice post-PhD.
Last but not least, I would like to thank the people who made this colloquium possible: Paul Higgins, Emma Tipton, and Isabella Herrera, for their passion and commitment in creating such a rich environment of learning opportunities and experiences.
Featured image: Akanksha Singh, second from left, with her SPC legislative exercise working group. (Photo courtesy of Akanksha Singh).
About the AMS Science Policy Colloquium
TheAMS Science Policy Colloquium is an intensive and non-partisan introduction to the United States federal policy process for scientists and practitioners. Participants meet with congressional staff, officials from the executive office of the President, and leaders from executive branch agencies. They learn first-hand about the interplay of policy, politics, and procedure through legislative exercises. Alumni of this career-shaping experience have gone on to serve in crucial roles for the nation and the scientific community including the highest levels of leadership in the National Weather Service, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), and AMS itself.
