Bob Ryan, meteorologist for WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., is the 2012 recipient of The AMS Award for Broadcast Meteorology. Ryan is being honored with this annual award in recognition of a career based on personal integrity and dedication to advancing the science of meteorology through broadcasting, education, promotion of safety, and support of colleagues.
Established in 1975, the AMS Award for Broadcast Meteorology recognizes a broadcast meteorologist for sustained long-term contributions to the community through the broadcast media, or for outstanding work during a specific weather event. Ryan, who has been a fixture in Washington TV News for more than three decades, will receive the award at the 92nd AMS Awards Banquet Wednesday evening in New Orleans.
The Front Page caught up with him to learn about how he connects with viewers when on-air and with his colleagues within the AMS. His primary advice for future broadcast meteorologists: “Be yourself,” he says, “and again, you’re talking to one person.” You can view interview below.
AMS2012
Everybody Talks about the Weather–but Not All the Time
Installation of dual-polarization radar at the Sacramento, California, office of the National Weather Service prompted a local paper to publish a detailed profile of forecast operations there. The web version we linked includes a short video interview with meteorologist Kathy Hoxsie explaining the advantages of the new observing technology.
Dual-pol of course is a major topic here at the Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Many attendees are getting a chance to hear the latest updates on the installation of the technology, including tomorrow (Tuesday, 11 a.m., Room 357) when Timothy Crum of NOAA/NEXRAD operations gives a “30,000 foot view” of the upgrade process.
One thing that caught our eye in the article was a telling comment Hoxsie made about the public’s interest in weather, when a
storm – which was producing a light drizzle Friday morning – had moved in Thursday, ending what had been a spike in weather interest by the public.
Counter-intuitively, people are interested when weather isn’t doing what it is expected to do, Hoxsie said. So the arrival of rain – a normal occurrence throughout the winter – didn’t mean more questions from the public.
“We get almost as many calls when there is no weather,” Hoxsie said. “People want to know if there is a drought, when the next storm is coming, when will the sunny weather end? The interest actually lessens a bit because the weather is doing what everyone’s expecting it to do.”
(Even if the public takes an occasional break from talking about the weather, surely this week of all weeks we can go nonstop, so here goes:) Doesn’t this effect depend on how menacing a rain might be? One would think a heavy rain might prompt a spike of interest in flood risks, or simply questions about when the rain would end. But the counterintuitive effect Hoxsie mentioned is a reminder that our relationship with weather is more nuanced than we might think.
So, at the same time as the presentation on dual pol radar (but in Room 243), you’ll find clear evidence of that subtlety thanks to David Perkins IV, who cuts through preconceptions about how weather determines people’s zoo attendance.
Social forces are admittedly the strengths of attendance prediction; however, the subtle differences in a zoo’s weather vulnerability—whether it is related to city proximity, spatial layout, surrounding demography, or climate of the location—are factors that underlie the scholarship of how weather and weather perception both affect zoo attendance.
The next paper in that session is by Kevin Simmons and Daniel Sutter, two social science researchers who also refuse to take this relationship for granted. We’re particularly interested to know what their cold-eyed data show about the effect TV meteorologists actually have on saving lives during tornadoes.
Learning to Live with Floods
We all know floods are not friendly. But the NWS and the nonprofit environmental organization Nurture Nature Center (NNC) are taking a new approach to flood education by accepting they are a part of nature that at times cannot be avoided, but can certainly be mitigated. This week’s 21st Symposium on Education will include a poster on the NNC/NWS partnership.
After a series of severe flood events in the Delaware River Valley, the NNC started “Floods Happen. Lessen the Loss,” an education program that emphasizes adaptation over prevention, acceptance over angst, and most importantly, education over ignorance. The program not only provides resources (including interviews with flood experts) and tools, but it also explores the deeper issues of how flooding affects communities and how those communities can live with and adapt to floods. This community-based approach to flood preparation is captured in this animated short film created by the NNC.
One of the key themes of the program is helping communities and individuals learn how to help themselves and then take the initiative to do so. For example, a new NWS flood warning system using Push technology sends out alerts to individuals’ e-mail addresses, internet browsers, and some cell phones . . . but only if the individual takes action and signs up for the alerts. (This link provides a how-to for signing up.) In this video, the NNC’s Rachel Hogan Carr explains how the program addressed another problem–the semantics of the term “100-year floodplain”:
The commonly used, but misleading concept, is the 100-year flood, which leads people to believe falsely that major flooding will occur only every hundred years on average. The truth is that even smaller storms can produce tremendous damage. In many areas along the Delaware River, the flooding in 2004, ’05, and ’06 was much smaller than a 100-year flood, but the damage was nonetheless extensive. And that’s just one problem with the term. The other is that many areas well outside the hundred-year floodplain are liable to flooding, too. In fact, nearly 30% of national flood insurance claims come from outside the 100-year floodplain, often in places where people thought they were safe. That’s why Nurture Nature has started using the terms high, moderate, and low risk to describe various regions of the floodplain.
The NWS/NNC collaboration now has a second initiative: the placement of NOAA’s Science on a Sphere at the NNC’s flood museum, and the creation of the first Science on a Sphere flood-related program, which will explain how climatic and oceanic changes are contributing to the increasing frequency and severity of floods throughout the world.
News from the AMS Council Meeting
At its meeting this morning, the AMS Council approved its influential Information Statement on Freedom of Scientific Expression for a five-year term. The statement is identical to the one that had been in force and was set to expire soon. The new expiration date is February 2017.
This statement has been welcomed throughout the scientific community as a whole, forming the basis for similar statements by other scientific societies. For example, in 2009 the American Geophysical Union adopted word for word the AMS text for its own Statement on Free and Open Communication of Scientific Findings.
Maintaining this unified position amongst scientific communities facilitates communication to the public about the strongly held values of the profession as a whole.
The AMS and AGU Statements state, for example, that
The ability of scientists to present their findings to the scientific community, policy makers, the media, and the public without censorship, intimidation, or political interference is imperative. In return it is incumbent upon scientists to communicate their findings in ways that portray their results and the results of others, objectively, professionally, and without sensationalizing or politicizing the associated impacts.
It is hard to imagine a statement that could be more apt to the conferences we’re about to launch here in New Orleans.
In other steps related to Statements at its morning meeting, the AMS Council voted to extend the life of the current Information Statement on Climate Change. The expiration date has been extended from 1 February 2012 to 1 September 2012. In addition to maintaining a clear, scientifically sound position on this newsworthy topic, this new step gives the drafting committee for an updated climate change statement more time to respond to detailed feedback from the September 2011 Council meeting. (See The Front Page post issued yesterday for more about the progress of this committee and of Statements in general.)
Also, this morning the Council encouraged a proposal to update the Statement on Meteorological Drought. However, the Council did not approve the proposal as is, and asked the drafting committee to broaden participation to better include perspectives from the hydrology and water resources communities, and experts from other parts of the world.
Operation Collaboration a Success: Congrats to Weather Quest Winners!
Congratulations to everyone who participated in Weather Quest at this year’s AMS Student Conference!
25 + 8 + 9 + 16+ 9 + 11+ 16 + (-1) = the correct answer of 93
A U S T I N T X
Anyone who submitted the correct answer was eligible for one of the prizes and their entries were weighted and randomized.
Random drawing winners were Jessica Taheri, Bevan Glynn, Sean Wolinsky, and Elizabeth Zbacnik, who won an assortment of prizes.
Fifth prize went to Branden Spinner, Valparaiso University, and fourth went to Anna Schneider, Penn State University; both received AMS weather DVDs, a book, and a USB flash drive. Third prize went to Cassandra Kreckman, Penn State University–she received a Microsoft wireless keyboard/mouse and a book.
Second prize winner Berkely Twiest of Penn State University won a Kindle Fire and a book.
And the First Prize winner–receiving free registration to the 2013 AMS Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas, $50 Amazon gift card, and AMS weather DVDs….Dan Goff, of Virginia Tech!
Get Your Meeting Photo Fix
After you check The Front Page, Twitter, Facebook, and the AMS YouTube channel for the latest happenings at the Annual Meeting, make sure to take a look at the photos on Flickr.
For more shots of the Career Fair and scenes around town, take a look here. Make sure to check back daily to see the latest events.
A Statement on Statements: Works in Progress
Today at its annual January meeting, the AMS Council will hear a report from a committee of expert members on the progress of a new revision to its Information Statement on Climate Change.
To say that the AMS’s current statement on this topic is “oft-cited,” particularly by advocates of strong action to mitigate and adapt to climate change, would be an understatement. It represented the best of climate science when it was adopted in February 2007, and includes such wording as:
strong observational evidence and results from modeling studies indicate that, at least over the last 50 years, human activities are a major contributor to climate change
And
increases in greenhouse gases are nearly certain to produce continued increases in temperature.
But despite the importance of keeping the public up to date on advancing climate science, don’t expect any major decisions in New Orleans. In fact, adoption of the updated Statement isn’t even on the Council’s agenda.
Actually, approval of the update would be forbidden by Council policy that requires a 30-day period to allow comments by members. Back in September, the Councilors ensured this by voting nearly unanimously for various enhancements, simplifications, and clarifications in the draft presented at that time. No new draft has yet been presented, though participants in the process report considerable progress. The Council has the option to extend the term of the Statement currently in force while the drafting committee continues its work.
This slow deliberative style is routine for an organization that has greatly expanded, diversified, and matured scientifically in its 92 years. At last year’s meeting, a proposed revision to the Statement on Mobile Homes and Wind Storms was considered. The Council liked the idea enough to approve a revision, suggesting that the “statement be broadened somewhat.” A year later and, still, the new Statement has not been released, even while deadly tornadoes have dominated the news. In fact, in 2011the Council approved only one statement—about Green Meetings.
At last January’s meeting in Seattle the Council decided to set up a committee to review statements that might need revision. The progress on all of these will be slow and iterative—by design.
“We don’t want to say anything unless it’s something we know,” one Council member said this weekend.
In this sense the standard for approving Statements is even more stringent than it is for accepting articles for the scientific journals. Peer review often at least leaves open the idea that results of a well designed and executed study might be invalidated, at least in part.
There’s no allowance for committees sitting up late burning the midnight oil drafting a perfect text to usher in a decision, either: an AMS Council policy doesn’t allow it. When a Council-appointed committee of members finally hands in a draft that the Council feels is good enough, the Statement is only then ready for the 30-day comment period that precedes the Council’s final review and possible approval.
Meanwhile, drafts more often than not shuttle back and forth between the Council and the drafting committee until the exact wording is settled.
In the case of the Information Statement on Climate Change, the anticipated completion date, initially hoped for 1 February 2012, has long been impossible. But the proof of the process, though slow, has its intended effect. Advancing science may eventually require that statements be updated and revised, but statements generally have a long lifetime in the public eye.
A Theme for the Week–And Beyond
Seat back in the upright position, tray table latched, seatbelt tightened, cell phone off. Time to relax and think about something unrelated to work? Nope. In fact it’s time for proof that AMS President Jon Malay picked a great theme for this year’s Annual Meeting .
If you’re flying to New Orleans on United Airlines (yeah, carbon offsets and all), reach into that seat pocket in front of you and pull out Hemispheres magazine and start flipping pages.
You notice right away that there are the usual references to weather: Airline CEO Jeff Smisek greets readers by expressing special kudos to his team (and that means weather forecasters, too) for “overcoming challenges like snowstorms, hailstorms, hurricanes, and the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan.” There’s also an article on what to wear in New York winters and an eye-catching full-page ad from Embry Riddle University (find them at the Career Fair Sunday and Monday) touting their research into wind and underwater turbines for generating electricity.
In particular, check out the “Next Big Things,” a profile feature on six people making a difference in technology. A bunch are directly related to atmospheric science:
- Ren Ng, of Lytro Camera, who engineered a way for better, efficient computing and focusing based on a “powerful miniaturized” light sensor—eliminating blur in hand held pocket cameras.
- Paul Mascarenas of Ford Motor Company, who’s pushing his technology team to develop wi-fi networks amongst nearby cars in traffic so that they can pass along up-to-the-second observations about road conditions and process better driving strategies.
- Jennifer Pahlka, of the nonprofit Code for America, which pays its fellows a stipend for a year to develop software in the public interest, including, for example, “an app for Bostonians to identify snow-covered manholes that need to be shoveled out [that] was later adapted by Honolulu to make sure its tsunami sirens were in working order.” Another app is a web-based solar energy potential calculator.
Remote sensing, road weather networks, mobile apps–these are all familiar themes this week as we look back, and ahead, to how technology shapes our community’s work. For more on the theme and how personally Jon takes it, watch his video on the Ametsoc YouTube Channel:
Top 10 Reasons For Attending the AMS Annual Meeting
by William Hooke, AMS Policy Program Director, from a post on the AMS project, Living on the Real World.
Our community has already begun to assemble in New Orleans for this year’s AMS Annual Meeting, which formally runs from Sunday, January 22 through Thursday, January 26. Before the last paper’s presented and the last exhibit is repacked and shipped home, maybe some 4000 people will have come through. That’s not counting the thousands of members of the general public who may show up for Sunday’s WeatherFest.
Motives for participating? They’re varied. Here’s a notional Top Ten list.
Let’s start by eliminating the one people tend to think of first. Travel to an exotic meeting site? Or the local cuisine? Fact is…it’s winter air travel, folks. Think flight delays. Jet stream turbulence. Jet lag under the best of circumstances; exhaustion under the worst. A year ago our meeting was in Seattle, where the Pacific Northwest is today struggling with a foot of snowfall in some places, power outages, massive flooding, and flight cancellations and delays. Picture our members from there trying to get here this year. Business travel is held in high regard by people who don’t have to do it.
Instead, start with:
10. Give talks. If you’re like me, this is a perennial motivator…maybe you even work for an organization that’ll fund your trip only if you can point to an accepted paper in an oral or poster session. Back when I was a federal manager in the NOAA labs I found this carrot to be a great productivity enhancer. I could count on everyone publishing several papers a year so they might go to the meetings.
9. Hear talks. But the reality? The real reason I was happy to send them to meetings was that I knew their experience would be like mine. Every year I’d get excited about what I was doing and think it was really cool stuff. Then I’d get to the meetings and be stunned to find that everyone else had done REALLY COOL STUFF. I knew my people would come back energized from the meeting, and their subsequent work would be higher quality and more relevant because they’d have seen what their peers and colleagues were doing.
8. Spot talent and potential. As a first-level supervisor of scientists and engineers I used to love the opportunity to spot the up-and-comers. I wasn’t the only one trolling for new hires. Government, universities, private-sector – we were all on the prowl for the next-big-thing and the super stars of tomorrow.
7. Networking. We didn’t call it that years ago, but the idea was the same as it is today. For each of us, the meeting experience is like fine wine…it keeps improving with age. You never say goodbye to those contacts you made in the course of your earlier work…at each meeting, and as your work changes direction, you add contacts and connectivity, and the stimulus provided each time around goes up exponentially, factorially. Here’s a metric: each year, it takes you more time to make it down the meeting hallway. [An aside: early-career professionals find this networking shtick a tough slog, and in these days of constrained funding, they’re finding it more difficult to make the meetings themselves as well. We should all applaud the efforts of volunteers who are working to institute special functions and mentoring for young professionals.]
6. Committee work. Speaking of volunteers, over time, you get sucked in…the experience is great and you tire of being a free rider…you want to give back. You find yourself volunteering, or at least not-ducking, any one of hundreds of roles on the Society’s different journals, or specialist areas or Boards or Commissions, or program committees for a Symposium or Conference embedded within the Annual Meeting, or maybe even the AMS Council. And then the year comes when you realize you’re spending as much or more of your time in side meetings and hallway conversations as you’re spending in the technical sessions. All that volunteer effort works a palpable improvement in the quality and relevance of the sessions, the joint sessions, and many of the special features that add value to today’s meetings.
5. Exhibiting. I’ve never been an exhibitor. At each meeting the Policy Program has a desk at the AMS Resource Center, but our contributions are barely worthy of the name. But as a staffer, I’ve developed a powerful appreciation for what the exhibitors do to add value to the meeting. On the exhibits floor, the content of all those talks on satellite instruments and radar algorithms and surface sensors comes to life. Members get a flavor of the exploding variety and utility of private-sector services. And the Monday- and Wednesday evening receptions on the exhibits floor provide a venue for even more networking and informal discussion. It’s an incubator for business and ideas. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The private sector makes significant financial contributions to the health and the spirit of the entire enterprise. If you’re enjoying a cup of coffee between sessions or a bite to eat at a committee meeting, chances are good you have a contribution from the private-sector to thank. Most of us take this for granted when we should instead be walking from booth to booth in the exhibits area thanking all those corporations and agencies who make the Society’s meetings possible and relevant.
4. International. Another dimension I’ve come to appreciate only belatedly? The special influence provided by our international members and partners. The few dozen heads of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS’s) worldwide who come to our meeting from every continent are small in number, but they punch above their weight. Their engagement reshapes the Annual Meetings fundamentally. In aggregate, they represent additional markets for products and services, and so swell the ranks and contributions of exhibitors. They attract U.S. domestic leadership – public, private, and university – to the meeting. They and the scientists who come from abroad enable a worldwide dialog.
3. WeatherFest. Why not, then, also draw in the public from the city where we’re holding the meeting? Over the past decade, we’ve started to do this, with gratifying results. Nowadays, each year on the opening Sunday of the Meeting, hundreds, if not thousands, of families and individuals from the local area drop by. They meet their broadcast meteorologists and other area personalities. They accumulate a little swag. Along the way, the kids (and maybe the occasional adult) pick up a few tidbits on weather, climate, and water. Everybody wins. An example? Picture kids getting a plate and some Play-Doh. They shape a coastal area and a coastline out of the Play-Doh. They surround that coast with water on the plate, add a few sugar cubes to simulate coastal construction. A hair dryer simulates a hurricane. The storm surge and spray damages the sugar cubes…don’t you wish you were here? Everyone has a good time, but more importantly, young people are getting jazzed about science…and about reducing disaster losses.
2. Celebrate the progress of science and technology. Step back…give yourself just a little distance from all the individual elements and myriad proceedings…and you’ll find in the sweep of what you see something to celebrate…the extraordinary pace with which our disciplines and their related technologies are advancing. The progress is far quicker than forty years ago, and continuing to accelerate. Truly exhilarating! To be part of such continuing accomplishment? Nothing else in life compares…
Except for…
1. The best reason for being here…the application of this accumulating body of knowledge for the benefit of mankind, not just at any single meeting, but over a sustained period of years. You see, the AMS, unlike any purely scientific society, considers such application an integral part of the community’s work…not just a hoped-for side benefit. To see the natural science and the social science come together, to see their integration into decision support in agriculture, emergency management, energy, environmental protection, public health, transportation, water resource management, and much more? To be part of a close-knit, high-minded community that holds this shared value above all others and ahead of self?
Priceless.
Let’s start by eliminating the one people tend to think of first. Travel to an exotic meeting site? Or the local cuisine? Fact is…it’s winter air travel, folks. Think flight delays. Jet stream turbulence. Jet lag under the best of circumstances; exhaustion under the worst. A year ago our meeting was in Seattle, where the Pacific Northwest is today struggling with a foot of snowfall in some places, power outages, massive flooding, and flight cancellations and delays. Picture our members from there trying to get here this year. Business travel is held in high regard by people who don’t have to do it.
Instead, start with:
10. Give talks. If you’re like me, this is a perennial motivator…maybe you even work for an organization that’ll fund your trip only if you can point to an accepted paper in an oral or poster session. Back when I was a federal manager in the NOAA labs I found this carrot to be a great productivity enhancer. I could count on everyone publishing several papers a year so they might go to the meetings.
9. Hear talks. But the reality? The real reason I was happy to send them to meetings was that I knew their experience would be like mine. Every year I’d get excited about what I was doing and think it was really cool stuff. Then I’d get to the meetings and be stunned to find that everyone else had done REALLY COOL STUFF. I knew my people would come back energized from the meeting, and their subsequent work would be higher quality and more relevant because they’d have seen what their peers and colleagues were doing.
8. Spot talent and potential. As a first-level supervisor of scientists and engineers I used to love the opportunity to spot the up-and-comers. I wasn’t the only one trolling for new hires. Government, universities, private-sector – we were all on the prowl for the next-big-thing and the super stars of tomorrow.
7. Networking. We didn’t call it that years ago, but the idea was the same as it is today. For each of us, the meeting experience is like fine wine…it keeps improving with age. You never say goodbye to those contacts you made in the course of your earlier work…at each meeting, and as your work changes direction, you add contacts and connectivity, and the stimulus provided each time around goes up exponentially, factorially. Here’s a metric: each year, it takes you more time to make it down the meeting hallway. [An aside: early-career professionals find this networking shtick a tough slog, and in these days of constrained funding, they’re finding it more difficult to make the meetings themselves as well. We should all applaud the efforts of volunteers who are working to institute special functions and mentoring for young professionals.]
6. Committee work. Speaking of volunteers, over time, you get sucked in…the experience is great and you tire of being a free rider…you want to give back. You find yourself volunteering, or at least not-ducking, any one of hundreds of roles on the Society’s different journals, or specialist areas or Boards or Commissions, or program committees for a Symposium or Conference embedded within the Annual Meeting, or maybe even the AMS Council. And then the year comes when you realize you’re spending as much or more of your time in side meetings and hallway conversations as you’re spending in the technical sessions. All that volunteer effort works a palpable improvement in the quality and relevance of the sessions, the joint sessions, and many of the special features that add value to today’s meetings.
5. Exhibiting. I’ve never been an exhibitor. At each meeting the Policy Program has a desk at the AMS Resource Center, but our contributions are barely worthy of the name. But as a staffer, I’ve developed a powerful appreciation for what the exhibitors do to add value to the meeting. On the exhibits floor, the content of all those talks on satellite instruments and radar algorithms and surface sensors comes to life. Members get a flavor of the exploding variety and utility of private-sector services. And the Monday- and Wednesday evening receptions on the exhibits floor provide a venue for even more networking and informal discussion. It’s an incubator for business and ideas. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The private sector makes significant financial contributions to the health and the spirit of the entire enterprise. If you’re enjoying a cup of coffee between sessions or a bite to eat at a committee meeting, chances are good you have a contribution from the private-sector to thank. Most of us take this for granted when we should instead be walking from booth to booth in the exhibits area thanking all those corporations and agencies who make the Society’s meetings possible and relevant.
4. International. Another dimension I’ve come to appreciate only belatedly? The special influence provided by our international members and partners. The few dozen heads of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS’s) worldwide who come to our meeting from every continent are small in number, but they punch above their weight. Their engagement reshapes the Annual Meetings fundamentally. In aggregate, they represent additional markets for products and services, and so swell the ranks and contributions of exhibitors. They attract U.S. domestic leadership – public, private, and university – to the meeting. They and the scientists who come from abroad enable a worldwide dialog.
3. WeatherFest. Why not, then, also draw in the public from the city where we’re holding the meeting? Over the past decade, we’ve started to do this, with gratifying results. Nowadays, each year on the opening Sunday of the Meeting, hundreds, if not thousands, of families and individuals from the local area drop by. They meet their broadcast meteorologists and other area personalities. They accumulate a little swag. Along the way, the kids (and maybe the occasional adult) pick up a few tidbits on weather, climate, and water. Everybody wins. An example? Picture kids getting a plate and some Play-Doh. They shape a coastal area and a coastline out of the Play-Doh. They surround that coast with water on the plate, add a few sugar cubes to simulate coastal construction. A hair dryer simulates a hurricane. The storm surge and spray damages the sugar cubes…don’t you wish you were here? Everyone has a good time, but more importantly, young people are getting jazzed about science…and about reducing disaster losses.
2. Celebrate the progress of science and technology. Step back…give yourself just a little distance from all the individual elements and myriad proceedings…and you’ll find in the sweep of what you see something to celebrate…the extraordinary pace with which our disciplines and their related technologies are advancing. The progress is far quicker than forty years ago, and continuing to accelerate. Truly exhilarating! To be part of such continuing accomplishment? Nothing else in life compares…
Except for…
1. The best reason for being here…the application of this accumulating body of knowledge for the benefit of mankind, not just at any single meeting, but over a sustained period of years. You see, the AMS, unlike any purely scientific society, considers such application an integral part of the community’s work…not just a hoped-for side benefit. To see the natural science and the social science come together, to see their integration into decision support in agriculture, emergency management, energy, environmental protection, public health, transportation, water resource management, and much more? To be part of a close-knit, high-minded community that holds this shared value above all others and ahead of self?
Priceless.
(Weather) Ready, Set, Go…
After a year that brought record-setting severe weather, the need to effectively prepare society for whatever Mother Nature throws at us has never been more evident. Throughout the week of the Annual Meeting, the Seventh Symposium on Policy and Socio-Economic Research will explore how to create a more weather-savvy society, and how technology will help us reach that goal.
The Symposium’s keynote address, “Science for a Weather Ready Nation” (Tuesday, 9:00 a.m., Room 243), will be given by Jane Lubchenco, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and the head of NOAA. This is a critical and fascinating time for NOAA, and through partnerships with scientists, the private sector, and other government agencies, its Weather Ready Nation initiative is pursuing a number of goals to help reduce the nation’s vulnerability to weather events:
- Improved precision of weather and water forecasts and effective communication of risk to local authorities;
- Improved weather decision support services with new initiatives such as the development of mobile-ready emergency response specialist teams;
- Innovative science and technological solutions such as the nationwide implementation of Dual Pol radar technology, Integrated Water Resources Science and Services, and the Joint Polar Satellite System;
- Strengthening joint partnerships to enhance community preparedness;
- Working with weather enterprise partners and the emergency management community to enhance safety and economic output and effectively manage environmental resources.
(A PDF of the entire Weather Ready Nation strategic plan can be downloaded here.)
The Symposium will consider a wide array of topics relating to this theme, including:
- policy issues, particularly the use and influence of scientific information on climate policy;
- communication, including the role of technology (such as social media) in communicating weather and climate information, as well as how diverse populations can receive information they can understand and use;
- economic matters relating to weather and climate information;
- New Orleans’s recovery from Katrina and adaptation to future weather events;
- societal dimensions of weather, especially relating to climate change hazards.