Annual Meeting Program Now Online

With the conference program just published on the AMS web site this week, we’ve already learned some important facts about the fast-approaching 91st Annual Meeting in Seattle on 23-27 January 2011.

  • There will be 2,309 papers. Not surprisingly the biggest conference is “Climate Variability and Change,” with 266 papers.
  • Overall, oral presentations (1,319) outnumber poster presentations (990).
  • Authors hail from Spain, Ghana, France, Argentina, Germany, India, Austria, Australia, Turkey, Canada, Brazil, China, Portugal, Cuba, Sweden, Ukraine, Switzerland, Indonesia, Norway, Mexico, Israel, Poland, Korea, Italy, Finland, Russia, Hungary, Russia, and other countries, not to mention obscure locations like Boulder, Asheville, and Silver Spring.
  • The conference search engine shows that all is right with Seattle: “cloud” (553) is more than three times as likely as clear (174) and so is precipitation (595); northwest (87) more likely than southeast (60). Meteorology (592) still reigns over climatology (149), and weather (1734) is a higher frequency phenomenon than climate (1428) and models (also 1428) are more common now than observations (1001). (But, 483 people named Norman?…Could that be? Really?)
  • The Bernhard Haurwitz Lecture, “Scale Interactions and the Generation of Low-Frequency Variability in the Atmosphere,” will be given by Dennis L. Hartmann, University of Washington, Seattle.
  • James A. Smith, Princeton University, will present The Robert E. Horton Lecture, “What Robert Horton Did Not Know about Floods.”
  • At the Presidential Town Hall Meeting on Thursday, Ralph Cicerone, head of the National Academy of Sciences, will recommend what the scientific community in general and the AMS community in particular can do to increase credibility with the public in the wake of the “Climategate” e-mails.

The Presidential Town Hall is one of many sessions on the overarching theme of the meeting, “Communicating Weather and Climate.” Communications-related themed Joint Sessions related are also planned, allowing attendees from diverse specialties to address questions shared as scientists and professionals. A few of the many titles: “Communicating with Each Other: The Challenges and Rewards of Expanding Atmospheric Science’s Professional Partners,” “Communicating with Technology,” and “Risk Communication of Weather and Climate Information.”

Science for Everyone at the USA Expo

The first USA Science & Engineering Festival kicks off this weekend in Washington DC. Running for two weeks, the festival wraps up with a two-day expo on 23-24 October, with 1,500 booths planned in the downtown area, numerous local festival events, as well as satellite events across the country. From Hawaii to New York, scientists plan to visit local schools, hold special events, and open their doors to the general public.

The WeatherBug mascot will be at the DC Weather Coalition exhibit.

As part of expo, AMS will take part in the massive event on the National Mall, helping out with a double booth space run by the DC Weather Coalition, an educational partnership of government, scientific societies, enterprise, and institutions. The booth features an exhibit called “Become an Amateur Weather Forecaster,” in which visitors can experience firsthand what it takes to be a weather forecaster (Booth Numbers 1010, 1012, Section MA-C).  “Using this approach to examine the wonders and mystery of weather, water, and climate certainly adds intrigue and excitement to the many hands-on exhibits sponsored by DC WeatherFest Coalition partners,” comments Elizabeth Mills, a Coalition representative and associate director of the AMS Education Program.
A WeatherBug weather station is planned to demonstrate the numerous ways to access the daily weather. Meteorologists from local television stations WJLA and TBD, including Joe Witte, and members of the AMS Education Department will be available for questions and to assist with the WeatherBug display and twice-daily Weather Jeopardy games at the booths.
Mills notes that this variety allows visitors to experience related topics from different perspectives.  “Visitors in one area of our exhibits can be interviewed on camera, in another explore a weather station, and in others learn about the latest in weather research,” and in other exhibits, “they can see, first-hand, the instrumentation used in the ocean and understand the way climate is changing, or watch their kids being entertained by the WeatherBug mascot.”
To find exhibits that meet specific interests, the festival site is organized by age range, subject area, keyword, or organization name.  A tracking system for various age groups also makes it easy to find events with a common theme. The exhibits will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on the weekend of the festival.

Beware the Wrath of a Presidential Storm

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) may indeed have underestimated the danger that Typhoon Conson posed to Manila in July. But it seems even more likely that PAGASA director Prisco Nilo underestimated the political storm that ensued.
At an emergency disaster coordination meeting after the storm (known locally as Typhoon Basyang), President Benigno Aquino scolded Nilo because PAGASA had led Manilans to believe the capital would be spared the brunt of the rain and winds:

That [storm] information it is sorely lacking and we have had this problem for quite a long time. … You do what you are supposed to do… this is not acceptable. I hope this is the last time that we are all brought to areas different from where we should be.

“He really was not angry,” Nilo commented at a press conference. “It was just a comment made by a President, he wanted things to improve, that was his point.”  Yet it seems the president was indeed angry; angry enough to fire Nilo a few weeks later.
It was only the second week of Aquino’s term when Basyang hit metropolitan Manila on 13 July, initially as a weak Category 1 tropical cyclone. Heavy rains and flooding led to at least 100 deaths (at least 70 people were initially reported as missing). The 95 kph

Typhoon Conson (Basyang)
Typhoon Conson approaching the Philippines in July. Portents of political trouble.

winds caused also caused power and communications outages that paralyzed the city for days. PAGASA’s last advisory that night at 11:00 p.m. said that the typhoon had weakened and was headed farther north of Manila. Yet around midnight the eye of the storm passed through the area.
Nilo’s explanation to President Aquino was that the bureau’s equipment limited storm updates and that the system needed to be updated:

We update the bulletin every six hours to take into account possible changes that were not earlier indicated by the mathematical models we are using as guidance in coming up with our forecast.

According to the Philippine news service GMA News, others have spoken up about similar constraints on PAGASA:

PAGASA officials have repeatedly said lack of modern equipment is hampering them from doing their jobs more effectively.

President Aquino’s responded that the bureau should have consulted

Read more

Oklahoma School of Meteorology Gets New Director

David Parsons started as the new director of the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology this week.  OU is the largest meteorology program in the nation, with nearly 400 undergraduate and graduate students. Parsons, who replaced Fred Carr, comes to the position from NCAR as a senior scientist and cochair of the THORPEX Project.
Parsons received his B.S. in meteorology from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in atmospheric science from the University of Washington. His career has been multi-dimensional with major contributions to the field. He has written over 120 papers, book chapters, and reports, more than 40 of which appear in scholarly journals or refereed books. Parson’s research contributions span a wide range of subject matter, including advanced sounding and electromagnetic profiling technologies and techniques, mesoscale model parameterizations, extratroptical and tropical rainband physics and dynamics, and definitive dryline studies, to name just a few. Recent works include the role of transport and diffusion in the stable nocturnal boundary layer surrounding Salt Lake City, Utah. He has been nominated twice for the NCAR Publication Prize as well as the WMO Vaisala Award.
Named a Fellow of AMS in 2009. Parsons also served as panel chair on the Mesoscale Chapter for the AMS Monograph on Severe Local Storms, as editor of JAS, and was a member of the AMS Committee on Severe Local Storms.

The Big Impact of BAMS

BAMS has done it again. After claiming the number one spot for Impact Factor on the Thompson Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) ranking in 2008, BAMS came in first in the Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences category once again in 2009.
The impact factor, or IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. Devised by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the ISI (now part of Thomson Reuters), the IF is calculated yearly and journals are ranked taking into account two years of citations. The total number of citations for BAMS in 2009 was 9,074 with an IF of 6.123.
The IF is primarily used to compare different journals within a field, with larger impact factors suggesting greater influence, or impact, in the field. Four other AMS journals placed in the top twenty with Journal of Climate coming in at number five, Journal of Atmospheric Sciences at thirteen, Journal of Hydrometeorology at fifteen, and Monthly Weather Review at twenty. The newest AMS journal, Weather, Climate, and Society will appear in the IF rankings for the first time in 2011 when there is sufficient citation data to calculate a score.

Soviet Scientist Pioneer in Radar Meteorology

Guest post by Sergey Matrosov, Valery Melnikov, Alexander Ryzhkov, and David Atlas
Vladimir Danilovich Stepanenko, one of the leading Russian scientists in the fields of radar meteorology and cloud physics died 17 March 2010 in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was born in October 1922 in a small Ukrainian village. After graduating from a high school in 1939 he decided to dedicate his career to meteorology and entered the Moscow Hydrometeorological Institute. After World War II broke out, Vladimir was transferred to the Army Hydrometeorological Institute from which he graduated with honors in 1944. A decorated World War II veteran, he served as a meteorologist in the Soviet Black and Azov Sea Navy in 1944 during the military campaign in the Crimean peninsula.
After WWII, Vladimir moved to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), and worked at the Leningrad Hydrometeorological Institute where he earned his Ph.D. degree. From 1950 to 1973, he was teaching at the Hydrometeorological Department of the Army Corps of Engineers Academy in Leningrad. He became a professor in 1967. During this time, Stepanenko became one of the leading Soviet scientists in radar meteorology and published his book Radar in Meteorology, which soon became the main fundamental textbook in the USSR in this discipline of science. 
In 1974, Stepanenko retired from his teaching position, and joined the Main Geophysical Observatory (MGO) as a deputy director of science. At this position, he continued his research work and advised many Ph.D. students. Stepanenko’s contributions to various areas of meteorology and cloud physics are significant. He was particularly interested in applied research. Some of his scientific studies include pioneering research in severe weather phenomena, aircraft icing, weather modification, lidar and microwave remote sensing of clouds and precipitation, and observations of air pollution. For his work in these areas, Stepanenko was awarded a USSR state prize in 1986.  He led the meteorological support activities for the Soviet Space Shuttle Program. He continually worked on improving instruments and methods for observations of clouds and precipitation, which resulted in 14 patents in addition to more than 270 scientific publications and 11 books. Although he was heavily engaged in the latter activities, Vladimir loved tennis and often came out first in his age group.
Stepanenko was also active in international scientific collaboration. For many years, he chaired the Center for Radar Meteorology, which coordinated operational weather radar observations in the former USSR and several countries of Eastern Europe. He served as a coleader of several international research projects including the Soviet–American Microwave Experiment (SAMEX), which was conducted over the North Pacific in 1978.  In the midst of the Cold War, joint experiments like this contributed to a better understanding between Soviet and Western scientists. On his trips to the United States he made a point to visit with his American friends. His friendship with David Atlas blossomed over the years through exchanges of scientific papers and annual greetings.
Besides being a brilliant scientist, Stepanenko was a great teacher. He was an adviser to more than 20 Ph.D. students. Many of his former students are now working in various Russian scientific institutions and also in other countries including the United States. He also was a man of fairness and good heart. We are privileged to have worked with him during important periods of our scientific careers.

AMS Gets Energized for Severe Weather

According to a survey last spring, almost seven out of ten Americans expressed little to no concern regarding possible emergency weather situations, and nearly half (43%) said they were unprepared for situations resulting from severe weather, such as power outages. According to the International Association of Fire Chief (IAFC), many people make the mistake of using candles instead of an emergency battery-powered kit in the event of a power outage, resulting in approximately 15,000 home fires annually.
To get this information about weather safety out to the public, AMS has joined the IAFC and Energizer in their weather preparedness initiative as part of the Change Your Clock Change Your Battery campaign. The public education program, Energizer Keep Safe. Keep Going®, which officially kicks off on the first day of spring, provides tips for building a power kit to keep critical lines of communication open.
AMS is encouraging on-air broadcasters to utilize the kits as informative props or possibly as giveaways to viewers. “Energizer sees the broadcast community as the perfect platform to spread this important message because they have the most direct conduit into homes,” says Keith Seitter, Executive Director of AMS. “Everyone turns to them when severe weather is threatening.”
Energizer will also be providing support for the Broadcast Conference in Miami this June, sponsoring travel for some of the severe weather experts and invited speakers and co-sponsoring the short course to enable more broadcasters to participate.  “Their sponsorship of the Broadcast Conference is allowing the conference to offer an increased level of professional development for attendees,” comments Seitter.  “This in turn benefits the meteorological community and our service to the general public. We’re expecting to have Energizer call on the AMS community for scientific expertise on storm safety and preparedness as this program continues to unfold.”

The Rules of Removal

Like everything in life, snow removal has its rules and someone is always going to be unhappy with them. This is particularly true in places with relatively mild winters that occasionally get walloped, like Washington, D.C. this February.
What happens after the snow stops falling and residents and business owners are left with the job of clearing parking spots and sidewalks?  What rules do they follow?  In Boston, a city law states that by digging your car out in a snow emergency, the spot can then be claimed for two days by “saving” it with a lawn chair or trash can. In Chicago, this is illegal. In D.C., residents were left wondering.

Not for lounging, but for saving shoveled parking places. A "snaux pas" recorded by blogger Shirlington Circle.

“I know this is public property, but if you spent hours laboring, I mean, come on, I think you have the right to say that is my spot,” Tanya Barbour told the Washington Post after spending two hours shoveling her car out.
The sidewalk etiquette question is not much clearer. In portions of Maryland, business operators and multifamily homeowners have 24 hours after the snow ends to clean off sidewalks, or face a $50 fine; in Prince George’s County, owners get 48 hours before they can be fined $100. Much of Virginia does not issue penalties for not shoveling, but rather encourages residents and business owners to do so to help neighbors and keep customers safe.
One sidewalk angel quoted in the Washington Post, however, turned snow clearing into a philosophical question:

Steven Williams…noted that some people wait until the snow melts to make shoveling easier. “When is too early or too late to do anything in life?” he asked. “Who makes the rules?”

[We’re tempted to turn that into a meteorological question: If you wait until some of the snow melts, doesn’t that make it likely your shovel loads will be a lot heavier than if you’d cleared the freshly fallen flakes? Can one use the meteorological variables to calculate an index of procrastination due to precipitation?]
In the meantime, the most important rule of snow etiquette seems to be that enumerated by the Arlington, Virginia, blog, “Shirlington Circle” in their list of “snow paux”:

5.  Build snow sculptures.  DC sees so few inches per year…so try attempting a piece of architecture or a family-friendly snowperson.  It also shows a neighborhood that plays together stays together.

Now, how to extend the etiquette of snow to martial arts of blizzards? The Official Dupont Circle Snowball Fight Fan Page on Facebook reached 5,000 members in anticipation of their scheduled February 6 battle in downtown D.C. The local media estimated the turnout at 2,000. That’s a great way to settle disputes over parking spots.

"Carbon Copy" Satellite Budgeted

Last year, NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory left climate scientists disappointed when it failed before it even began. The $278 million satellite plunged into the Indian Ocean near Antarctica  in February 2009 after a fairing on the probe’s Taurus XL rocket didn’t separate during launch. Now, the science community is hoping the sequel, OCO-2, will deliver what the first could not: measurements accurate enough to show for the first time the geographic distribution of carbon dioxide sources and sinks on a regional scale.
OCO principal investigator David Crisp of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and his team evaluated the possibilities of getting another satellite up in space and chose to try again with the same design. “This is a carbon copy of the original,” Crisp comments, “with just a few minor, now-obsolete parts replaced.” Within three days after the failed launch, the OCO science team created a proposal for an OCO-2.
A year ensued, but as part of the 2011 Earth and Climate Science Budget released this month, the White House has now slotted $170 million for NASA to develop and fly OCO-2.
The new satellite is scheduled to be rebuilt and launched in 28 months, after 1 October of this year, when the budget would take effect if approved.
OCO isn’t the only mission to benefit in the Obama Administration’s proposed 2011 budget. Existing missions such as the Global Precipitation Measurement and the Landsat Data Continuity Mission will receive a monetary boost as well as several planned missions, such as the Glory mission, the NPOESS Preparatory Project mission, and the Aquarius mission.
Climate scientist Ken Caldeira of Stanford University was happy with the news of OCO returning to space. “The Orbiting Carbon Observatory is a key piece [of] the monitoring system that we need to keep track of our changing Earth, so that we might better understand the complex interplay of Earth’s climate system and carbon cycle, and therefore help to better inform the difficult climate-related decisions that we will need to make over the coming years and decades.”

Weather and Water at the Robert E. Horton Lecture

John Schaake of NOAA/NWS giving his presentation "Weather, WATER, Climate, and Society: New Demands on Science and Services" at the Robert E. Horton Lecture on Tuesday. (Jenni Girtman / Atlanta Event Photography for AMS)

Attendees tune in at the Robert E. Horton Lecture, which was sponsored by the 24th Conference on Hydrology. (Jenni Girtman / Atlanta Event Photography for AMS)

Schaake greets attendees at the lecture. (Jenni Girtman / Atlanta Event Photography for AMS)

Dennis Lettenmaier speaking during the Q&A portion of Schaake's presentation. (Jenni Girtman / Atlanta Event Photography for AMS)