Description:

Curiosity about, and understanding of, the day-to-day weather has informed synoptic-dynamic meteorology education, teaching, science and research for decades. Famous weather scientists like Edward Lorenz, Sverre Petterssen, Richard Reed, Frederick Sanders, and Reginald Sutcliffe revolutionized the field of synoptic-dynamic meteorology and weather analysis and forecasting in the post WWII world. They were well-grounded in both observational and theoretical meteorology. For example, Edward Lorenz was a weather-informed scientist and “bomb” cyclone fan who looked at weather maps every day and served as a weather forecaster in WW-II.  He became world-famous for developing atmospheric chaos theory which enabled him to quantify how initial condition uncertainty limited the predictability of synoptic-scale weather systems. These scientists leveraged their knowledge of weather analysis and forecasting and modern atmospheric dynamics to educate many current outstanding meteorologists and climate scientists in our field today.

Clara Deser, Kerry Emanuel, and Kevin Trenberth are examples of beneficiaries of climate and weather science education pioneered by the above-mentioned scientists. These scientists are illustrative of a group of modern researchers who are comfortable working on weather- and climate-related research problems across a variety of time and space scales. Clara Deser, an outstanding climate scientist who is also a distinguished member of the National Academy of Sciences, studies global climate variability in observations and modeling. She uses large ensemble forecasts to assess the impacts of extreme weather in future climates.   Kerry Emanuel, an outstanding climate scientist and dynamical meteorologist who directs the Lorenz Center at MIT, is also a “weather nut” who is interested in severe weather and bomb cyclones in addition to hurricane behavior in future climates. Kevin Trenberth, an outstanding climate scientist who has won many research awards, worked as an operational weather forecaster in New Zealand for several years. His interest in weather analysis and forecasting motivated him to write his famous paper on the Sutcliffe-Trenberth omega equation and its application to routine weather forecasting.

Over the last decade there has been a creeping reduction, broadly defined, in modern synoptic-dynamic meteorology education, teaching, science, and research coincident with the rapid growth of statistics-based climate science and dynamics-based modern numerical weather analysis and prediction. New faculty hires in synoptic-dynamic meteorology have not kept pace with retirements. The perception at many universities is that weather science education should focus mostly at the undergraduate level and not at the graduate level. The purpose of this proposed AMS session is to discuss the status of synoptic-dynamic meteorology going forward and how best to reinvigorate and modernize synoptic-dynamic meteorology education, teaching, science, and research. The organizers of this proposed AMS session believe that weather science and climate science need to be on an equal footing and that students interested in either discipline will benefit considerably from having access to educational and research opportunities in both. We will discuss what should be the best practices to enable a proper “marriage” of weather and climate science, broadly defined, to the benefit of the next generation of atmospheric scientists as well as practitioners in these fields