94th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting

February 02 - 06, 2014

Everyone talks about the weather, but what does everyone do about it? Hear diverse perspectives from government, the private sector, and international agencies on how they cut through the babble to ensure weather warnings are trusted and acted upon when severe weather threatens. For additional information, please contact Douglas Hilderbrand (douglas.hilderbrand@noaa.gov) or Christopher Vaccaro (christopher.vaccaro@noaa.gov).

This Town Hall will focus on the Policy Program’s recent study on climate information needs for financial decision-making. The study examined four key topics: 1) the conditions and criteria that influence returns on investment of major financial decisions, 2) the climate sensitivity of financial decisions, particularly in the United States, 3) climate information needs of financial decision-makers, and 4) potential new mechanisms to promote collaboration between scientists and financial decision-makers. Better understanding of these four topics will help improve the capacity in the United States for near-term financial decision-making based on the best available knowledge and information relating to the climate system. As a result, the study will enable leaders in business and government to make well-informed choices that help maximize long-term economic growth and social well-being in the United States. For additional information, please contact Paul Higgins (phiggins@ametsoc.org)

In the wake of recent disasters, such as Hurricane Sandy, there is a new community awareness of the operational high-performance computing needs of NOAA. In response, NOAA is investing substantial additional resources to increase its operational computing capacity. The target of a 2 petaflop machine in 2018 represents a 10-fold increase from computing resources in 2013. These resources afford a rapid and radical evolution of the operational NOAA modeling suite over the next five years. However, to make it the best end-to-end system necessitates an unprecedented coordination among the modeling, forecaster, academic, and private sector user-communities. In an effort to foster this coordination, the AMS Board for Operational Government Meteorologists and the AMS Weather Analysis and Forecasting Committee are sponsoring a Town Hall Meeting on NOAA’s strategy for operational numerical weather prediction. In particular, the Town Hall will discuss NOAA’s strategy for applying these high performance computing resources to improve operational weather forecasting. NOAA officials will be present to explain the strategy and discuss current plans for the modeling system evolution. Special emphasis will be placed on plans to implement a global 10 km forecast system and the implementation of a CONUS storm scale ensemble. Representatives from the forecaster, academic, and private sector community will be present to discuss the opportunities and challenges the rapid evolution of the model suite presents. For additional information, please contact Trisha Palmer (e-mail: trisha.palmer@noaa.gov.

In 2012 there were 11 billion dollar weather and climate disasters in the United States according to the NCDC. Several of these disasters directly impacted major cities and urban areas. The high population density and increasing growth of large metropolitan areas makes stability and sustainability of energy of critical importance in the urban environment. An important factor in the stability and sustainability of energy in the urban environment is weather. Temperature extremes magnify energy demands in heavily populated areas, while storms like post-tropical storm Sandy present risks to the distribution grid. Extreme weather in a small geographic region can have large consequences for urban environments in terms of reliability and emergency management response . Cities are a great opportunity to increase weather dependent renewable energy production for reliability and for reduction of greenhouse gases. The climate is changing and weather extremes seem to be occurring more frequently. With this in mind, this town hall aims to discuss where do we go from here? This town hall meeting will be co-sponsored by the AMS Energy Committee and the AMS Board on the Urban Environment. Some of the possible questions for discussion are: What are the meteorological and climate challenges of integrating more renewable energy generation in urban areas? What are the evolving policies related to energy in the urban environment and are the aims of these policies realistic? What research is needed by the meteorological and climate communities in order to promote energy sustainability , resiliency, and security in the urban environment? What should urban areas be doing to adapt and mitigate the effects of extreme weather hazards and climate change? Who should be leading the charge to make such changes – ie: private entities, local, state, federal governments, a collaboration? For additional information, please contact Manda Adams (manda.adams@uncc.edu), Jorge Gonzalez (gonzalez@me.ccny.edu) orKevin Stenson (Kevin.Stenson@meteogroup.com).

Our operating environment has changed. Globalization, technological development, and the changing roles of individuals in society have reshaped the context within which we operate. At the same time, we are seeing more extreme weather, increases in the costs of natural disasters that are among the highest in the world, and greater disruption in disaster patterns. The growing interconnectedness of our world, technological interdependencies, economic and physical vulnerabilities, and changes in the climate underscore the need for improved and more active management of the risk environment nationally. As a Nation we often lack a full understanding of the true risk exposure over time from our decisions, be they land use, development, or engineering in nature – and more importantly, who bears the cost of that exposure. Is climate changing, and if so, in what ways? Is changing climate driving an increase in severe events? What are the implications of changing climate and severe events to our national security? What are our vulnerabilities? How do we prepare for, or avoid, the impacts of climate change? Please join us as we welcome two pre-eminent speakers: FEMA Administrator W. Craig Fugate and Nobel Laureate Donald Wuebbles. Professor Wuebbles will first present the principal findings of the recent major international IPCC assessment report, of which he is a Coordinating Lead Author. Special guest speaker Administrator Fugate will then present a strategic vision to prepare for the impacts of climate change. Also to be shown is the Ultra-Fine resolution simulation of the evolution of Hurricane Sandy as it approached and made landfall, with catastrophic impacts over the northeastern United States created by a team of researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and Cray Inc. W. Craig Fugate was confirmed by the US Senate and began his service as Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in May 2009. Under Fugate's leadership, emergency management has been promoted as a community and shared responsibility. FEMA has fostered resiliency, a community-oriented approach to emergency management to build sustainable and resilient communities. FEMA has instituted a permanent catastrophic planning effort to build the nation’s capacity to stabilize a catastrophic event within 72 hours. FEMA is implementing a National Preparedness System (PPD-8) to build unity of effort to address the nation's most significant risks. FEMA is supporting state and local governments with efforts to prepare for the impacts of climate change through "adaptation," which is planning for the changes that are occurring and expected to occur. Prior to coming to FEMA, Fugate served as Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM). Fugate served as the Florida State Coordinating Officer for 11 Presidentially-declared disasters including the management of $4.5 billion in federal disaster assistance. In 2004, Fugate managed the largest federal disaster response in Florida history as four major hurricanes impacted the state in quick succession; Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne. In 2005, Florida was again impacted by major disasters when three more hurricanes made landfall in the state; Dennis, Katrina and Wilma. The impact from Hurricane Katrina was felt more strongly in the gulf coast states to the west but under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact or EMAC, Florida launched the largest mutual aid response in its history in support of those states. Fugate began his emergency management career as a volunteer firefighter, paramedic, and a Lieutenant with the Alachua County Fire Rescue. Eventually, he moved from exclusive fire rescue operations to serving as the Emergency Manager for Alachua County in Gainesville, Florida. He spent a decade in that role until May 1997 when he was appointed Bureau Chief for Preparedness and Response for FDEM. Within FDEM, Fugate's role as Chief of the State Emergency Response Team (SERT) kept him busy in 1998, the SERT team was active for more than 200 days as a result of numerous floods, tornadoes, wildfires, and Hurricane Georges. Fugate and his wife Sheree hail from Gainesville, Florida. http://www.fema.gov/leadership/william-craig-fugate Donald J. Wuebbles is the Harry E. Preble Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Illinois. He is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences as well as an affiliate professor in the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He was the first Director of the School of Earth, Society, and Environment at Illinois, was the first Director of the Environmental Council at the University, and was Head of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences for many years. Professor Wuebbles is a Coordinating Lead Author for the next major international IPCC assessment of climate change that will be published in 2013 and is a leader in the next U.S. National Climate Assessment, being a member of the Executive Secretariat and the Federal Advisory Committee. Dr. Wuebbles is an expert in numerical modeling of atmospheric physics and chemistry. He has authored over 400 scientific articles, relating mostly to atmospheric chemistry and climate issues. He has been a lead author on a number of national and international assessments related to concerns about climate change. He has also been a lead author on national and international assessments relating to atmospheric chemistry and the effects of human activities on stratospheric and tropospheric ozone. Dr. Wuebbles and colleagues received the 2005 Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has been honored by being selected a Fellow of three major professional science societies, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Meteorological Society. He is the Chair of the Global Environmental Change Focus Group for the American Geophysical Union. He shares in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the international Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He was a member of a federal advisory committee that assessed and in 2009 published a report on the potential impacts of climate change on the United States. http://www.atmos.illinois.edu/people/wuebbles.html For additional information, please contact Phil Ardanuy (e-mail: PArdanuy@oceanleadership.org).

Direct Broadcast (DB) technology is rapidly evolving to better leverage the expanded observing capabilities offered by the new generation of polar-orbiting environmental satellites. DB offers the user many advantages such as lower costs, reduced data latency, the ability to network with other DB sites to create wider regional or even global coverage, and, very importantly, the ability to combine data from other sources to generate locally-unique products. During this Town Hall you will learn more about these new DB capabilities, actual user experiences and also community-wide software programs, such as the Community Satellite Processing Package (CSPP), which bring this DB technology to reality for worldwide DB users. For additional information, please contact Gary McWilliams (gary.mcwilliams@noaa.gov), 240-684-0597.

Are you interested in learning Python for doing work in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences (AOS) or in teaching Python to AOS users? This Town Hall is for you! Panelists will discuss different resources for learning AOS Python, their experiences in teaching Python to AOS users, and will field questions from the audience about learning and teaching Python. For additional information, please contact Johnny Lin (johnny@johnny-lin.com).

This Town Hall session will provide an opportunity for the earth science community to interact with members of the leadership team and staff of the Earth Science Division (ESD) of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Brief presentations by the ESD leadership will precede a longer opportunity for audience questions. Topics to be addressed in the Town Hall session include scientific accomplishments and programmatic milestones from the past year, current programmatic directions, and NASA’s progress towards implementing the missions identified in the June 2010 report "Responding to the Challenge of Climate and Environmental Change:NASA’s Plan for a Climate-Centric Architecture for Earth Observations and Applications from Space" which incorporates recommendations from the National Research Council’s 2007 Decadal Survey for Earth Science, “Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond.” Recent developments in the Venture Class program and the non-flight parts of the NASA program (research and analysis, applied sciences, technology) and NASA's involvement in interagency and international programs will also be reviewed. For additional information, please contact Jack A. Kaye (202-358-2559, Jack.A.Kaye@nasa.gov).

This Town Hall Meeting will introduce participants to the suite of available National Science Foundation (NSF) observational research platforms and services available through the five Lower Atmospheric Observing Facilities (LAOF) partner organizations, and provide a clear roadmap on how to request these facilities in support of scientific field campaigns and educational activities. Facility Managers, experienced users of LAOF, and NSF representatives will provide information, guidance and advice on how to incorporate available instruments and platforms into an experiment design, what steps need to be taken to request one or more of these facilities, and how to maximize the success of a campaign. Through its Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS), NSF provides multi-user national facilities through their LAOF Program in support of the geosciences community at no cost to the investigator. These facilities, which include research aircraft, radars, lidars, surface and sounding systems, receive NSF base support and are eligible for deployment funding. While the program management resides within AGS in the NCAR/Facilities Section (NFS), the facilities are managed and operated by the five LAOF partner organizations - the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Colorado State University (CSU), the University of Wyoming (UWY), the Center for Severe Weather Research (CSWR) and the Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely-Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS). Observational facilities are available on a competitive basis to all qualified researchers from universities, NCAR and other government agencies requiring these research platforms and associated services to carry out various research objectives. The deployment of all facilities is driven by scientific merit, capabilities of a specific facility to carry out the proposed observations, and scheduling for the requested time. For additional information, please contact Alison Rockwell (email: rockwell@ucar.edu).

A new paradigm in severe weather watches and warnings is being formulated, developed and evaluated by the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) and the National Weather Service's (NWS) Storm Prediction Center (SPC). Known as FACETs, or Forecasting a Continuum of Environmental Threats, the paradigm seeks to integrate relevant disciplines of social science into every aspect of its development so as to ensure the greatest possible societal value and impact. While extensive research and development have been conducted on the physical sciences side of the “warning system,” the social science research (as it pertains to severe weather warnings) is still in a somewhat nascent stage – but growing in multiple social science disciplines. The panel, representing social and physical science communities, will engage in identifying what past and current social science research findings might be applicable to FACETs (or any new watch/warning paradigm), the degree to which these findings may be applicable, and what gaps still exist between our social science needs and knowledge. A goal of this Town Hall discussion is to facilitate a network of interested researchers and stakeholders in developing a repository of past and current research that can integrate with the development of FACETS; and to begin identifying the needs for new social science research (and the requisite researchers) to fill existing gaps in research foundations for the development of FACETS. This will be a participative discussion involving the panelists and the audience, and will serve as an extension of similar conversations at the 2013 AMS Broadcasters' Conference and Weather Ready Nation Meetings of 2011 and 2012. This is jointly sponsored by the Ninth Symposium on Policy and Socio-Economic Research and the Second Symposium on Building a Weather-Ready Nation: Enhancing Our Nation’s Readiness, Responsiveness, and Resilience to High Impact Weather Events. For additional information, please contact Lans Rothfusz (Lans.Rothfusz@noaa.gov) or Laura Myers (drlauramyers@gmail.com).

At the 2013 AMS General Meeting, members had an open microphone to discuss the impacts of faith on their perception of the state of the environment. Members were also introduced to several interfaith organizations that work with spiritual communities to promote “good stewardship” of the environment and promote spiritual activism on behalf of global warming. During this town hall meeting, there will again be an opportunity for public comment and sharing from AMS members of various faiths followed by presentations from two members that contrast the perspectives of “sacred activism as a spiritual calling” and “faith-based responses.” For additional information, please contact Tim Miner (thminer@aol.com).

Federal Leaders from NOAA and DoD will discuss their needs, interests, and ongoing development activities in several multi-agency projects to improve National predictive capability. This will include a review of ongoing efforts to accelerate the transition of new technologies into operations and the hands of forecasters. Session to include question and answer period, with participation from other U.S environmental research sponsor agencies also connected to these efforts. For additional information, please contact David McCarren (e-mail: david.mccarren @noaa.gov).

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Applications Program is geared towards identifying and fostering research that will provide fundamental knowledge of how SMAP mission data products can be scaled and integrated into users’ policy, business and management activities to improve decision-making efforts. We define applications as innovative uses of mission data products in decision-making activities for societal benefit. As SMAP draws closer to its launch date of October 31, 2014, the mission is increasing its focus on communicating with users of SMAP data. Through our work with the SMAP community and early adopters we have learned that there are challenges the mission can address prior to launch that will increase the number and impact of scientific applications of SMAP data. Because the use of SMAP data is different for each user, it is important to understand the individual resolution, access and accuracy concerns about SMAP data by thematic discipline. As a result of the 2012 SMAP Prelaunch Professional Review, we are proposing this Town Hall meeting to provide information about existing soil moisture data from Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite, soil moisture data from AMSR-E and discuss how they relate to plans for future soil moisture data from SMAP. SMAP will benefit from the SMOS historical data record and provide continuity for soil moisture retrievals. This Town Hall will serve as a platform to elicit the information needed to develop technical workshops that will enhance the use of SMAP soil moisture data after launch. The SMAP applications program can help ensure that flood planning, drought monitoring products, and agriculture production assessments that plan to use SMAP data will save time and effort in incorporating the data after launch. We will communicate the details of the mission and address the questions of the interested communities who attend. For additional information, please contact Vanessa Escobar (e-mail: vanessa.escobar@nasa.gov.)

The National Science Foundation's Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS) invites you to an open meeting to learn about the Division’s opportunities for research funding and scientific leadership. The AGS Townhall is a dialog with the community on current and future AGS activities. The Townhall will begin with a brief review of the AGS budget, current staffing - including opportunities to work at NSF - tips for reviewers and prospective PI's, upcoming solicitation deadlines, and new funding opportunities. A brief, high-level description of our evolving "Goals and Objectives" strategic document will be the starting point for an ongoing conversation with the AGS community on research and infrastructure needs and priorities. Bring your ideas, comments, questions, and concerns. For additional information, please contact Tracy Rozell, 703-292-4696, trozell@nsf.gov.

The United States has been lofting weather satellites since 1960. In that time, our Earth observation platforms have become technological wonders that enable unprecedented research and forecasting. At the same time, they have become more costly, require longer development times, and our reliance on them has only grown. These trends are at odds with the current economic atmosphere and the clash has resulted in an imminent gap in polar satellite coverage and potential loss of continuity across Earth observation programs. Is there a way out of the quandary? Join INNOVIM and NanoSatisfi in a panel discussion about the future of weather forecasting and the role CubeSats can play in that future. We will introduce our CubeOpera™ Weather initiative, a constellation of satellites providing higher frequency, increased granularity Earth observation at a fraction of traditional satellite costs. We will bring experts to weigh in on the needs of the weather community, the current and future capability of CubeSat-oriented technology, and the potential challenges that lie ahead. Add your voice to the ‘opera,’ with your ideas for how to improve weather forecasting using the new technologies now coming of age. For additional information, please contact Victoria Thompson at 443-699-0668 or vthompson@innovim.com.

The Directorate for the Geosciences (GEO) at the National Science Foundation (NSF) is looking for research ripe for commercialization, for faculty interested in having students co-advised with industry, for faculty interested in collaborating with their counterparts in Industry, and for much more. Come to see how students like you, together with their advisors, have tested the potential commercial viability of their NSF supported research products with the help of the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Program. Creating your own startup, additional funding (NSF-SBIR, STTR, etc) and licensing are just some of the expected (and seen) outcomes of I-Corps. This Town Hall Meeting will provide an overview of the various Programs that fall under the NSF's Innovation call and that are intended to foster academic-industry collaborations on fundamental research questions of common interest, to accelerate the translation of NSF-supported inventions into commercial products, and to educate the workforce of the future. Some of these initiatives have been in place since the late 70s, but where are you? These Programs are open to all GEO PI's, including YOU! For additional information, please contact R. Montelli. (e-mail: rmontell@nsf.gov.)

Continued advancements in numerical weather prediction are tied to running models at higher temporal and spatial scales. Next-generation global models are being designed to run at 3KM resolution, with North-American models proposed to run at 1KM or finer resolution. An estimated 10 to 100 fold increase in high performance computing is needed to support development, testing, and running these models, and related ensemble and data assimilation systems, at these resolutions. HPC resources will be needed to develop, test, and tune the models as well as run them in highly reliable operational environments so products and grids can be delivered in a timely manner to downstream users in the government, commercial and public sectors. The emphasis of this town-hall is on the HPC necessary for running weather models at sustained teraflop or even petaflop performance in production and development environments. We will discuss issues including code scalability, choice of accelerator technologies (MIC vs. GPGPU), managing I/O, and data locality for analysis and post-processing. For additional information, please contact Brian Etherton (e-mail: brian.etherton@noaa.gov).

NASA has nine (9) satellites currently in formulation and development, with eight scheduled to launch before the end of 2017. These include GPM, SMAP, and OCO-2 (all in 2014), SAGE III (2015), ICESat-2 and CYGNSS (2016), and GRACE FO and OCO-3 (2017), and SWOT (2020). These nine will join the pantheon of existing US and international weather, climate and research satellites. In addition to these missions, NASA has recently been given additional sustained earth observing measurement responsibilities. chartered by the Administration with the responsibility for defining and implementing, in coordination with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the nation’s Sustained Land Imaging Program to follow the currently flying Landsat & and Landsat 8 (formerly known as LDCM) missions. And NASA has been directed to continue the fundamental climate measurements of solar irradiance, earth radiation budget, and ozone profiling to extend the data record into the future. How will NASA be meeting these demanding measurement objectives? NASA’s Earth Science Division is working now, in collaboration with NOAA, the USGS, DOE and international partners, and with our industrial community, on science studies, technology investments, and mission definition studies to prepare the next generation of satellites and observations for launch in 2018, 2019 and soon thereafter. At this Town Hall meeting we will present the progress and plans for these next generation missions, including mission concepts from the 2007 NRC Decadal Survey (http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/decadal-surveys/) and from the 2010 NASA Climate Plan (http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/). We will identify opportunities for greater interaction with the NASA missions already in formulation and development, as well as opportunities for future collaboration as we move forward with this next generation of missions and measurements. For further information, please contact Stephen Volz (svolz@nasa.gov).

Who were the first space scientists in the United States? Names like James Van Allen, Herb Friedman, Richard Tousey, Homer Newell and William Rense are those we think of when we think back to the first scientists who designed and built devices to sense the nature of the Earth's high atmosphere and explore the nature of solar radiation beyond the atmospheric cutoff. They used vehicles like captured German V-2 missiles, the Navy's Viking and then Aerobee sounding rockets to make these observations. Here we look back at who these people were, why they chose such difficult challenges, and why none of them were established physicists or astronomers who had disciplinary training that stimulated the questions they wanted to answer with these instruments. UCAR will be sponsoring a limited number of box lunches during the town hall meeting. For additional infomation, please contact Susan Baltuch, (e-mail: sbaltuch@ucar.edu).

Set in the context of the Superstorm Sandy Symposium and the 2014 Annual Meeting’s overall theme, this Town Hall will provide an opportunity to hear perspectives from the leadership of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Acting Under Secretary Kathryn Sullivan (INVITED) will highlight NOAA’s efforts to strengthen the resilience of our Nation’s communities, businesses and natural resources in the face of extreme weather events and longer-term challenges associated with a changing climate. NOAA’s longstanding responsibilities for weather forecasts and warnings are complemented with agency mission activities encompassing climate, environmental data and information services, coastal resources stewardship, marine resources management and cutting-edge oceanic and atmospheric research. This places NOAA in a unique position to contribute to a National effort to enhance preparedness, anticipate events and strengthen resilience in communities throughout the Nation and around the world. For additional information, please contact Eileen Shea (e-mail: eileen.shea@noaa.gov)