Being Agile in the Environmental Sciences in a Data-driven World

Over the past few decades, the world has seen an acceleration into the digital space at speeds unmatched since the dawn of the internet. The amount and speed of data consumed and transformed into actionable intelligence has grown exponentially. To compete in the information age, the skill sets needed are beyond the current curriculum in many environmental sciences, including atmospheric science. End-users are continuously evolving their decision making and looking for any possible edge over competitors. In this landscape, the need for data scientists, software engineers, and subject matter experts working together is critical. Success depends on the ability to adapt to rapidly changing needs of diverse end-users. Subject matter experts must expand beyond scientific insight and seek to understand the tools that are being leveraged to enable rapid technological advances. To this end, further education in software development and data science are needed to increase the demand and value of environmental science graduates. Environmental science curricula have programming as a low-level requirement, but this generally does not translate well into the data-centric, software-driven workforce. Likewise, the environmental sciences have low-level statistics requirements, but may not be satisfying the workforce desire for enhanced data analytics. Finally, concepts that enable teams to accelerate change are widely missing from the natural sciences and instead only exist in the computer science or business arenas. The 16th Weather Squadron (16 WS) in the United States Air Force (USAF) is a microcosm of the broader business case of rapid innovation needed in industry and highlights gaps in current curriculum. The composition of the 16 WS at its inception was largely driven by meteorologists with some knowledge in programming. This led to slower research to operations (R2O) and a growing backlog of technical debt. At present, the number of meteorologists has decreased to where they make up only half of the 16 WS, while software developers and data scientists make up the other half and continue to increase. The squadron has adopted an agile approach to software development, enabling quicker deployments to answer USAF business cases of accelerating R2O to maintain advantage. Agile concepts and increased output through DevSecOps (Development-Security-Operations) frameworks will be discussed using the 16 WS as a backdrop to highlight highly sought after skills in the digital workforce.