14th Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences

Program Chairs: Valliappa Lakshmanan , Climate Corporation ; Amy McGovern , Univ. of Oklahoma

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Sunday, 10 January 2016

7:30 AM-9:00 AM: Sunday, 10 January 2016


Registration for Short Courses and Conference for Early Career Professionals
Location: Hall D pre-function ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

8:30 AM-5:30 PM: Sunday, 10 January 2016


Registration for Student Conference and Short Courses
Location: Hall D pre-function ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

9:00 AM-6:00 PM: Sunday, 10 January 2016


Registration Open for Annual Meeting
Location: Hall D pre-function ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

Monday, 11 January 2016

9:00 AM-10:30 AM: Monday, 11 January 2016

Recording files available
Plenary Session 1
2016 Presidential Forum: Serving Society in Times of Crisis: Past, Present and Future
Location: La Nouvelle B-C ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Moderator: Maureen McCann, News 13
Panelists: Admiral Thad Allen, United States Coast Guard (ret), Executive Vice President Booz Allen Hamilton; Kerry Emanuel, MIT; Shirley Laska, University of New Orleans; Max Mayfield, WPLG-TV/Former NOAA/National Hurricane Center Director
9:00 AM
Presidential Forum on Serving Society in Times of Crisis: Past, Present and Future
9:05 AM
Opening Remarks (by AMS President Alexander E. “Sandy” MacDonald)

9:15 AM
Introduction of Moderator McCann (MacDonald)

9:16 AM
Introduction of Speakers (McCann)

9:20 AM
Opening Remarks of Speakers

10:05 AM
Q&A

10:30 AM
Concluding Remarks

10:30 AM-11:00 AM: Monday, 11 January 2016


Coffee Break
Location: La Nouvelle Foyer ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

11:30 AM-12:00 PM: Monday, 11 January 2016

Recording files available
Session 1
AI for Climate Informatics and Extreme Weather
Location: Room 354 ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Host: 14th Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences
Chair: Caren Marzban, University of Washington
11:30 AM
1.1

12:00 PM-1:30 PM: Monday, 11 January 2016


Lunch Break

1:30 PM-2:15 PM: Monday, 11 January 2016

Recording files available
Session 2
AI Techniques Applied to Environmental Science Part I
Location: Room 354 ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Host: 14th Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences
Chair: John K. Williams, The Weather Company, an IBM Business
1:45 PM
2.2
Global Monitoring of Inland Surface Water Dynamics using Remote Sensing Data
Anuj Karpatne, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN; and A. Khandelwal, X. C. Chen, V. Mithal, and V. Kumar
2:00 PM
2.3
Verification of the Spatial Structure of Gridded Forecasts
Caren Marzban, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; and C. jones, N. Li, and S. Sandgathe

1:30 PM-2:30 PM: Monday, 11 January 2016

Recording files available
Lecture 1
Walter Orr Roberts Lecture
Location: La Nouvelle A ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

2:30 PM-4:00 PM: Monday, 11 January 2016


Formal Poster Viewing with Coffee Break
Location: Hall D/E ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

4:00 PM-5:00 PM: Monday, 11 January 2016

Recording files available
Joint Session 6
Biennial AMS AI Contest
Location: Room 354 ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Hosts: (Joint between the 14th Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences; and the 30th Conference on Hydrology )
Chair: Carlos Felipe Gaitan, University of Oklahoma/NOAA-GFDL
4:00 PM
J6.1
Feature Engineering on Rainfall Matrices
Mike Kim, Booz Allen Hamilton, VA

4:30 PM
J6.3
Hourly Rainfall Estimation using Gradient Boosted Decision Trees
Devin Anzelmo, University of California, CA

4:45 PM
J6.4
4th Place Solution for “How much Did it Rain? II” Kaggle Competition
Shize Su, University of Virginia, Charlottesville; and A. Jacobs

5:30 PM-7:30 PM: Monday, 11 January 2016


Exhibits Opening Reception, Ribbon Cutting, and Corporate Recognition
Location: Hall D/E ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

Tuesday, 12 January 2016

8:00 AM-9:45 AM: Tuesday, 12 January 2016

Recording files available
Session 3
AI Techniques for Decision Support
Location: Room 354 ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Host: 14th Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences
Chair: Haig Iskendarian, MIT Lincoln Laboratory
8:15 AM
3.2
Predicting Weather Impact on Airspace Flow Using Multiple Forecasts
Mark S. Veillette, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA; and M. Matthews, H. Iskenderian, and R. DeLaura
8:30 AM
3.3
The Optimal Meteorological Forecast System Project at Meteorological Services of Canada
Donald Talbot, EC, Dorval, QC, Canada; and C. Landry, J. Marcoux, M. Nadeau, and M. Verville
8:45 AM
3.4
Severe Hail Forecasting Evaluation: Machine Learning and Severe Weather Proxy Variables
David John Gagne II, CAPS/Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK; and A. McGovern, N. Snook, R. A. Sobash, J. K. Williams, S. E. Haupt, and M. Xue
9:00 AM
3.5
Real-time Prediction of Damaging Straight-line Winds Produced by Thunderstorms
Ryan A. Lagerquist, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK; and A. McGovern, V. Lakshmanan, and T. M. Smith
9:15 AM
3.6
Using Machine Learning for Nowcasting Severe Weather Hazards
Amy McGovern, Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK; and C. D. Karstens, T. M. Smith, and K. M. Kuhlman
9:30 AM
3.7
On Learning Patterns Between GPS Derived Precipitable water fields and Radar Reflectivity Fields
Aditya Nagarajan, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA; and D. L. Pepyne

9:45 AM-11:00 AM: Tuesday, 12 January 2016


Formal Poster Viewing with Coffee Break
Location: Hall D/E ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

11:00 AM-12:00 PM: Tuesday, 12 January 2016

Recording files available
Joint Session 1
HPC and AI for Big Data in Atmosphere, Ocean and Water
Location: Room 354 ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Hosts: (Joint between the 14th Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences; and the Second Symposium on High Performance Computing for Weather, Water, and Climate )
Chair: Amy McGovern, Univ. of Oklahoma
11:00 AM
J1.1
High Performance Computing for Mesoscale Weather Prediction with the K-computer
Kazuo Saito, MRI/JAMSTEC, Tsukuba, Japan; and T. Oizumi, L. Duc, K. Ito, M. Kunii, S. Yokota, S. Origuchi, W. Mashiko, J. Ito, and H. Seko
11:15 AM
J1.2
11:45 AM
J1.4
Exploring Methods to Leverage Apache Spark in Meteorological Applications Through the Creation of Scispark
Kim D. Whitehall, JPL/California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA; and R. Palamuttam, R. Marroquin Mogrovejo, B. D. Wilson, C. Mattmann, L. J. McGibbney, R. Verma, and P. Ramirez

12:00 PM-1:30 PM: Tuesday, 12 January 2016


Lunch Break

1:30 PM-2:30 PM: Tuesday, 12 January 2016

Recording files available
Lecture 2
Bernhard Haurwitz Lecture
Location: La Nouvelle C ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

1:30 PM-3:00 PM: Tuesday, 12 January 2016

Recording files available
Joint Panel Discussion 1
The NOAA Big Data-CRADAs. An Update and a Look at the Opportunities They Pose for the AMS Community and Its Members
Location: Room 342 ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Hosts: (Joint between the 32nd Conference on Environmental Information Processing Technologies; the 14th Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences; and the 11th Symposium on Societal Applications: Policy, Research and Practice )
Moderator: Mohan K. Ramamurthy, UCAR
Panelists: William Gail, Global Weather Corp.; Amy Gaskins, NOAA Big Data Project Senior Consultant; George Percivall, Open Geospatial Consortium; Leanne Haselden, IBM; Valliappa Lakshmanan, Climate Corporation; Maria Patterson, Open Science Data Cloud
1:30 PM
William Gail
3:00 PM
Amy Gaskins
4:30 PM
George Percivall
6:00 PM
Leanne Haselden
7:30 PM
Valliappa Lakshmanan
9:00 PM
Maria Patterson
10:30 PM
JPD1.1
Panel Discussion

3:00 PM-3:30 PM: Tuesday, 12 January 2016


Coffee Break
Location: Hall D ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

3:30 PM-4:45 PM: Tuesday, 12 January 2016

Recording files available
Joint Session 2
Applications of Artificial Intelligence Methods for Energy
Location: Room 354 ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Hosts: (Joint between the 14th Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences; and the Seventh Conference on Weather, Climate, Water and the New Energy Economy )
Chair: Sue E. Haupt, NCAR
3:45 PM
J2.2
An Evaluation of Statistical Learning Methods for Gridded Solar Irradiance Forecasting
David John Gagne II, NCAR, Boulder, CO; and S. E. Haupt, S. Linden, and G. Wiener
4:30 PM
J2.5
Lessons Learned Implementing a Real-time Electrical / Gas Load Forecasting System
Thomas Brummet, NCAR, Boulder, CO; and J. Williams, S. Dettling, and G. Weiner

Wednesday, 13 January 2016

10:00 AM-10:30 AM: Wednesday, 13 January 2016


Coffee Break
Location: Hall D ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

11:00 AM-11:45 AM: Wednesday, 13 January 2016

Recording files available
Session 4
AI Techniques Applied to Environmental Science Part II
Location: Room 354 ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Host: 14th Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences
Chair: Carlos Felipe Gaitan, University of Oklahoma/NOAA-GFDL
11:00 AM
4.1
A New Approach to Automated Cold Pool Tracking
Aryeh J. Drager, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO; and S. C. van den Heever

11:15 AM
4.2

12:00 PM-1:30 PM: Wednesday, 13 January 2016


Lunch Break

1:30 PM-2:30 PM: Wednesday, 13 January 2016

Recording files available
Lecture 3
Horton Lecture
Location: Room 244 ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Hosts: (Joint between the 32nd Conference on Environmental Information Processing Technologies; the 23rd Conference on Probability and Statistics in the Atmospheric Sciences; the Fourth Symposium on the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise; the Fifth Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology Special Symposium; the Seventh Conference on Environment and Health; the 22nd Conference on Applied Climatology; the 13th Conference on Space Weather; the 19th Joint Conference on the Applications of Air Pollution Meteorology with the A&WMA; the 30th Conference on Hydrology; the Special Sessions on US-International Partnerships; the 25th Symposium on Education; the 14th Symposium on the Coastal Environment; the 12th Annual Symposium on New Generation Operational Environmental Satellite Systems; the Fourth Symposium on Building a Weather-Ready Nation: Enhancing Our Nation’s Readiness, Responsiveness, and Resilience to High Impact Weather Events; the Fourth AMS Symposium on the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA); the Peter Lamb Symposium; the 20th Conference on Integrated Observing and Assimilation Systems for the Atmosphere, Oceans, and Land Surface (IOAS-AOLS); the 18th Symposium on Meteorological Observation and Instrumentation; the 14th Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences; the 11th Symposium on Societal Applications: Policy, Research and Practice; the Seventh Conference on Weather, Climate, Water and the New Energy Economy; the Sixth Conference on Transition of Research to Operations; the Fourth Symposium on Prediction of the Madden-Julian Oscillation: Processes, Prediction and Impact; the 28th Conference on Climate Variability and Change; the Events; the 18th Conference on Atmospheric Chemistry; the 14th History Symposium; the Eighth Symposium on Aerosol–Cloud–Climate Interactions; and the Special Symposium on Seamless Weather and Climate Prediction—Expectations and Limits of Multi-scale Predictability )
1:30 PM
L3.1

2:30 PM-4:00 PM: Wednesday, 13 January 2016


Formal Poster Viewing with Coffee Break
Location: Hall D/E ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

5:30 PM-6:30 PM: Wednesday, 13 January 2016


Awards Banquet Reception in the Exhibit Hall
Location: Hall D ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

7:00 PM-10:00 PM: Wednesday, 13 January 2016


96th AMS Awards Banquet
Location: Great Hall ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

Thursday, 14 January 2016

9:45 AM-11:00 AM: Thursday, 14 January 2016


Formal Poster Viewing with Coffee Break
Location: Hall D/E ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

12:00 PM-1:30 PM: Thursday, 14 January 2016


Lunch Break

1:30 PM-2:45 PM: Thursday, 14 January 2016

Recording files available
Joint Session 21
AI Applications in Real-World Hydrologic Problems
Location: Room 354 ( New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Host: 14th Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences
Cochairs: Valliappa Lakshmanan, Climate Corporation; John N. McHenry, Baron Advanced Meteorological Systems, LLC
1:30 PM
J21.1
A Rainfall Nowcasting Algorithm Based on Hydro-Estimator Data
Joan M. Castro, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, PR; and N. D. Ramirez-Beltran and J. Gonzalez

2:00 PM
J21.3
Spatial Clustering of Extreme Rainfall Events in Greater New York Area Using Weather Radar Data
Ali Hamidi, City University of New York, New York, NY; and N. Devineni, J. F. Booth, R. R. Ferraro, and R. Khanbilvardi
2:30 PM
J21.5
Can We Obtain Viable Alternatives to Manning's Equation Using Genetic Programming?
Carlos Felipe Gaitan, University of Oklahoma/NOAA-GFDL, Princeton, NJ; and B. Moore III and V. Balaji

3:00 PM-3:30 PM: Thursday, 14 January 2016


Coffee Break
Location: New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center

5:00 PM-5:05 PM: Thursday, 14 January 2016


AMS 96th Annual Meeting Adjourns