policy

The Value of Knowing Our Value

by Ellen Klicka, AMS Policy Program
Sometimes articulating the right question is the tipping point on the path to the right solution.
At last week’s AMS Washington Forum, members of the weather, water and climate enterprise and other leaders assembled to discuss the pressing issues the community is facing. Speakers and attendees alike posed questions, shared insights and then posed better questions.
The first panel took a focused look at progressing towards a better understanding of the economic value of the weather and climate enterprise.
One question that is as good as any to begin an exploration is, “Why do we want to estimate the value of the enterprise?” Forum participants frequently revisited this point during the forum. What follows are themes raised throughout the three-day dialogue.
As a community, weather, water and climate organizations and professionals do not justify in quantitative terms their value to society as effectively as other enterprises. Where can this community say it fits in?
The difficulties created by increasingly tight federal budgets are inescapable. Some say if the enterprise does not step forward to demonstrate why its labor is vital to the nation, decision makers with less knowledge will have no choice but to set priorities on their own. Others believe that framing of the issue is divisive, pitting segments of the community against each other for finite resources.
In either case, quantifying the value of the weather and climate enterprise requires a paradigm shift from evaluating the costs of weather to focusing instead on the benefits of weather and climate information.
Part of the challenge stems from the cumbersome and imprecise nature of the steps involved in calculating even the smallest microcosm of the enterprise. If investigators did arrive at a total dollar value or benefit-to-cost ratio of investment in the enterprise, how confident could anyone be in its basis?
The Weather Enterprise Economic Evaluation Team, under the auspices of the AMS Commission on the Weather and Climate Enterprise, will complete a draft request for proposals by this summer to commission the largest study of this kind ever undertaken.
While most members of the enterprise are scientists, the tools of economics will be valuable to this study. For example, an examination of marginal values brings to light the gains from increased investment. Where is the biggest bang for your buck for one extra dollar? Logic points to the biggest need: getting the public to understand and use forecast information effectively so they take appropriate action.
These recent discussions on valuation have not been the first among the AMS membership, and they won’t be the last. The themes of the next enterprise-wide gathering—the AMS Summer Community Meeting in Boulder, Colorado, on August 12-15–include improving weather forecasts; supporting ground transportation, aviation, and conventional and renewable energy; and, yes, determining the economic value of the weather and climate enterprise.
Until then, ponder this multiple choice question:
How good do we want to be as a nation?

A. No worse than we are today
B. As good as we can be (with no realistic limitations on resources)
C. As good as we can afford to be at a fixed cost-benefit ratio
D. As good as or better than other nations at a similar economic development stage

Hanging Together: The AMS Washington Forum

by Ellen Klicka, AMS Policy Program
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” – Benjamin Franklin
News headlines these days are reflecting the increasingly austere and complex environment in which private businesses, governments and academic institutions manage to muddle through towards a better tomorrow. Creating new opportunities to collaborate for mutual advancement is more of a necessity than it used to be. The annual AMS Washington Forum, to be held April 2-4, 2013, fills that need for the benefit of all three sectors that make up the weather, water and climate enterprise and offers insight into the workings of Washington, DC, an increasingly austere and complex city.
This year’s theme, the economic value of the weather, water and climate enterprise, builds on discussions at other recent AMS meetings and may resonate particularly well in Washington circles: Considering the national attention on last year’s natural disasters, renewed interest from Congress in climate legislation, the federal budget sequester, and continued economic uncertainty, this event couldn’t be more timely and on topic.
In the last six weeks alone, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, and the House Science, Space and Technology Committee have scheduled hearings or briefings on pressing topics our community is studying or addressing. Topics range from policy-relevant climate issues to the economics of disasters for America’s farmers.
The notion of tacking a dollar value onto the benefits the weather, water and climate community affords the country is not a new one but it has proved an elusive task. Groups within the AMS membership have been grappling with the development of an approach to size up exactly what the enterprise adds to the economy and American society as a whole for at least a couple years. The AMS Annual Meeting and Summer Community Meeting have included discussions on the topic, as have AMS journals (such as these BAMS articles by John Dutton and by Jeffrey Lazo et al.). With the U.S. tightening it collective belt, it is more urgent than ever that the enterprise be able to objectively demonstrate its worth.
Policy makers rely on quantifiable reasons for making choices that affect the country, and enterprises that are defined by industry may have an easier time estimating their market size. The weather, water and climate enterprise cuts across many industry sectors. Avoided losses can be difficult to pinpoint. Because our community operates in an environment characterized by increasing pressure to justify the need for investment, the AMS Commission on the Weather and Climate Enterprise is planning a valuation effort. The first panel at this year’s Forum will explore the challenge and discuss approaches to a valuation effort.
Subsequent panels will tackle many of the hot issues facing our community right now: international opportunities, data commercialization, environmental security, renewable energy policy, water resource management… the list goes on.
The Washington Forum has evolved through the years since AMS began holding the conference in the national capital. Originally, the forum was held as a benefit to corporate members and fellowship/scholarship donors in recognition of their sponsorship of AMS.  The event expanded to include the government sector and became known as the Public Private Partnership Forum. When the Commission on the Weather and Climate Enterprise was formed in 2005 in response to the National Academies’ Fair Weather Report, it was recognized that the academic sector deserved inclusion as well.
The Washington Forum is an open meeting to which all AMS members and other professionals in the weather, water and climate enterprise are welcome and encouraged to attend. For more information on this year’s event, visit the Forum website.
 

For Science and Discovery, Videoconferencing Won't Get It

by J. Marshall Shepherd, AMS President. The full text was posted earlier today on his blog, Still Here and Thinking.
I am sitting here during coffee break at the NASA Precipitation Science Team Meeting in Annapolis, Maryland. This meeting is a gathering of the world’s top scientists working with the TRMM, GPM, and other NASA programs related to precipitation, weather, climate, and hydrology.
A prevailing lament of many of my federal colleagues attending this meeting is the concern about the ability to attend scientific meetings because of travel restrictions and sequestration/budget issues. As I ponder their laments, I reflect on whether (1) these colleagues are spoiled federal employees not adjusting to austere budgets, (2) these colleagues are victims of a perception about federal employee travel because of a few isolated bad choices (e.g. GSA conference story publicized in the media, or (3) I have a bias as AMS president because we host meetings and have an interest at stake.
Here are four things that I come up with:
We risk stifling scientific and technological innovation:  Yes, budgets are tight and some travel/conference activities (a very small percentage) are questionable. However, as someone that has attended scientific meetings and conferences for over two decades, these meetings are very intense, intellectually-stimulating, and advance the science. They are not vacations or frivolous. I arrived at the meeting room yesterday at 7:45 am, sat through various sessions, met with two different working groups/planning committees, and discussed a potential new scientific collaboration. I got to dinner at 8:15 p.m. There is a movement towards the use of various videoconferencing solutions. Those advocating these measures have completely missed the point that the most valued aspects of attending conferences and meetings are the “hallway” meetings, poster sessions, lunch/dinner meetings that lead to potentially transformative research, or the chances to caucus with colleagues on a new method or technology. (AMS Executive Director Keith Seitter made these points in The Front Page in December.) The presentations (what gets videoconferenced) are important but often secondary or tertiary to the value of such meetings.

All professions stay current on their topic, why should scientists and engineers be different?: I cannot imagine any profession or industry not wanting its employees to be current on the latest methods, techniques, and discussions. I am certain that leading companies continuously train their employees. Scientific meetings are “the training” for many professionals. For example, our AMS annual meeting has up to 20+  “conferences” within one conference. It also has various short-courses, town halls, and briefings. I argue that we risk “dumbing down” our U.S .scientific workforce with such arcane travel restrictions. At a time when we need to push the innovation envelope for society, we risk folding it up and discarding it. As an example, our Air Force pilots are the best in the world. They develop their skills through course work and flight simulators. However, at some point, they have to get into a real aircraft and interact with other pilots to gain knowledge, experience, and “tricks” of the trade.
Another offshoot of federal travel restrictions is our standing with the international community. U.S. presence is essential at many international meetings. Many of our collaborators and colleagues abroad are also being affected in terms of their own meeting planning, expectations, and the possibility of no U.S. presence. Does anyone see the inherent problem with this from the standpoint of international partnerships and our reputation?
What I also find amazing (and admirable) is that many federal colleagues (often called “lazy” or not-dedicated) have paid their own way to meetings or conferences. But if they do this, are they representing themselves? Should they discuss their work at the conference (since technically they are on vacation)?
Stifling the Private Sector:  The private sector and small businesses are critical to our economy. I spoke with several major company representatives and small businesses at our 2013 Austin AMS meeting. They were also lamenting. They were talking about how the lack of federal attendees severely hinders their access to potential new clients and business. This has more than a trickle down effect on the health and vibrancy of our private sector and its contributions to economic vitality.
The Next Generation: As a young meteorology student at Florida State, I was in awe of attending the AMS and other meetings and having the opportunity to meet the woman who wrote my textbook, the Director of the National Hurricane Center, or a NASA satellite scientist. Our current generation of students (undergraduate or graduate) are in jeopardy of losing these valuable career-enriching opportunities. AMS, for example, hosts a Student Conference and an Early Career Professional Conference. By design, we expose hundreds of future scholars, scientists, and leaders to the top professionals in our field. In 2013, many of these professionals can’t travel or have to jump through hoops to declare the travel “mission critical” in NASA-speak (I spent 12 years as a NASA scientist).
I conclude that I am not being a “homer” on this issue. There are real concerns about the status and future of scientific discovery, innovation, private industry health, international reputation, professional development of our workforce, and exposure of our next generation.
Video conferencing just won’t get it.
Added 29 March, to clarify:  I am aware of the challenges related to travel and emissions. Three points are worth adding:

  1. AMS has a Green Meetings initiatives.
  2. Large shifts to videoconferencing are not completely immune to costs, such as energy required to support increased computing/IT requirements, and
  3. Videoconferencing may be highly appropriate for smaller committee and board meetings but not large scientific meetings, which was the point of this post.

The Short and Long of Sequestration Forecasts

By now your head is probably spinning with all the conflicting forecasts what the Federal sequestration will do to us. (For a sample, try the Washington Post’s compilation of various projections.) If the collective disagreement of pundits indicates a kind of chaos–a bit like making a weather forecast when the numerical models just will never converge, an ensemble gone haywire–then you’re right. The reason for the confusion, says AMS Policy Program Director William Hooke, is that nobody knows what will happen. Here’s how he put it, in an interview with The Weather Channel’s Maria LaRosa on yesterday’s Morning Rush show:

TWC: What should we expect in particular for weather agencies? What is your top concern right now?
My top concern is the same as the weather top concern. The uncertainty in all this. We make good weather forecasts because we have practice. The case of the sequestration is something different. It’s unprecedented. We don’t know what will happen. That includes the policy makers at the top and the bench forecasters at the bottom.
TWC It may be a couple weeks before we some of the direct impacts? How are you folks preparing, or can you?
Hooke: You know, an NGO like the American Meteorological Society can’t do much but watch with horrified fascination. The real issue is what happens to those scientists and technicians who try to keep the radars prepared and keep staff online when bad weather occurs with little notice, and just be ready to protect property and to protect the American public.
TWC And the AMS gives out grants for all kinds of things, and how does that impact money that you guys give out?
Hooke: We’ll certainly be getting less and so we’ll be less capable in turn. We, like many private sector firms and academic researchers, depend a great deal on NOAA, the National Weather Service, and other federal agencies to keep things humming, particularly innovation, particularly improvements in forecasts and services.

However, as we know from weather forecasting, the short term may be overwhelmed by chaos and uncertainty, but that doesn’t mean seasonal or climate projections can’t have some teeth in them.  City College of New York physics professor Michael Lubell, who is also director of public relations for the American Physical Society, told Ira Flatow yesterday on National Public Radio’s Science Friday that the short term uncertainty is itself a determinant for the long term prospects of science:

One of the difficulties we have in science is that it’s not like a road project. You say, “well, we don’t have enough money to continue paving something today, we’ll call the crew off and bring them back six months or nine months from now.” Science—you cut it and the people aren’t coming back, facilities aren’t going to be opened again….
I think of this as taking a frog or taking a goose in a pot of water and we’re slowly heating it up, and eventually the goose gets cooked and by the time it gets cooked it’s too late to deal with it. That’s what’s going to happen to us.  Unfortunately the public doesn’t see it immediately, and I think the President probably made a mistake by trying to scare people, because you’re not going to see it at least for several months, if not then. It’s just going to be a slow erosion, and the case with science, as I said, is that erosion is not some you see easily.
I would argue…that the more devastating effects are the long-term effects. If you have a longer line at the airport today, put money back in and those lines will get shorter. If we remove our money from the investment—and let me just make a couple comments about this. I mean half of the economic growth since World War II was attributable to science and technology. One fact that people usually don’t know is that laser enabled technology accounts for one-third of our economy today, and they began with a small amount of government money more than 50 years ago.
[With cuts] the programs shut down forever. When people are smart, they find other things to do.