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.”