2018 Haurwitz Lecture

For broadcast and digital meteorologists, engaging with audiences on social media has become an indispensable part of the job. Social media platforms are critical for communicating up-to-the-minute weather information and interacting directly with readers and viewers. Meteorologists can greatly benefit from audience-generated content, including photos, videos and reports which they can share to enrich their own coverage. But social media also presents many challenges. How do you build a following and what content is most engaging and appropriate to post? How much time should be spent on social media and which platforms reach the most people? How do you sustain a strong social media presence when you have other more pressing responsibilities? Can you monetize social media content? Should you confront bad information published on social media from amateurs and even colleagues? This panel will attempt to address many of these challenging questions.

The Robert T. Ryan Symposium will conclude with a cocktail reception welcoming symposium attendees, along with Bob's numerous colleagues and former interns from across the weather enterprise. With a short program hosted by symposium co-chair and AMS Fellow Veronica Johnson of WJLA in Washington, D.C., this casual event will honor Bob for his distinguished career, achievements, and contributions to the American Meteorological Society.

This session will focus on increasing the effectiveness of communications to broadcast media about the health impacts of weather and climate events, including understanding which messages are more effective. New research will be highlighted that supports broadcast media efforts to communicate the individual and community impacts of climate-related events, to help people understand who is being affected and the actions that can be taken to reduce exposure to these events and to increase resilience when exposure occurs.

We encourage all attendees to take the opportunity to grab a snack and coffee and spend this extended afternoon break networking with colleagues and viewing the hundreds of posters on display in the poster hall. Poster displays are grouped by conference and change each day.

Similar to terrestrial weather, Space Weather causes a wide variety of issues that can affect our daily lives. As our reliance on technology advances, the effects of space weather go beyond the common knowledge of the aurora that transforms our skies to less well-known things like radio communications disruptions and the heightened radiation dose airline passengers receive during space weather events. Even some of the ubiquitous GPS errors on today’s smartphones can be attributed to space weather. From minor issues to historic catastrophes, space weather effects are all around us, all at once intimidating and awe inspiring. With the introduction of space tourism, we find our society beginning to leave the rim of our world and venturing out into a vast universe beyond. Within a few years, there are going to be commercial rocket flights and stratospheric balloons that will take ordinary people closer to the edge of space than ever before. However, the public largely has no idea what space weather means. Although NASA and other science agencies have done much to create an open data policy to increase public awareness, a huge disconnect still exists between the scientists who study space weather and those in the public who benefit from forecasting. As terrestrial meteorology was in the 1960s, so we find ourselves in a similar state for space weather now. Forecast data exists, but it is mostly geared towards specialized audiences, with very little avenue for dissemination to the public. It is a critical time. New modes of communicating space weather to a very eager public are becoming available. Some of these critical paths may be through broadcast and social media, and having actionable forecasts immediately accessible to the public could make all the difference. This is the paradigm shift that we must strive for—that space weather is real, relevant, and knowable. The proposed session will combine the expertise of space scientists, meteorologists, and broadcasters to stimulate an interdisciplinary discussion during this pivotal time in both the history of the AMS and in the communication of space weather. During the session the following questions will be discussed:  Who benefits from space weather forecasting and communication? What are the biggest challenges to successfully communicating and engaging the public? Where do key opportunities lie that facilitate collaboration and inspire unique platforms for engagement? How can we best engage and educate members of the AMS, AGU, and broadcast community in the art of communicating space weather?

This themed joint session will focus on the multi-faceted reasons for and ways that populations might be challenged to prepare for, cope with, recover from, and thrive when faced with weather hazards and with a changing climate. The role of communication messages and sources in reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience at individual, community, and organizational scales will be particularly emphasized.

We encourage all attendees to take the opportunity to grab a snack and coffee and spend this extended afternoon break networking with colleagues and viewing the hundreds of posters on display in the poster hall. Poster displays are grouped by conference and change each day.