Joint Session
28
Saturday, 6 January 2018
7:30 AM-10:00 AM: Saturday, 6 January 2018
Registration for Short Courses and Student Conference
Location: Atrium Lobby (Austin, Texas)
8:00 AM-9:00 AM: Saturday, 6 January 2018
Student Conference Breakfast
Location: EFG Foyer (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
9:00 AM-10:10 AM: Saturday, 6 January 2018
10:10 AM-10:25 AM: Saturday, 6 January 2018
Student Conference AM Break
Location: EFG Foyer (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
10:25 AM-11:10 AM: Saturday, 6 January 2018
During this breakout session, you will have an opportunity to attend two unique panels designed to highlight a range of careers in meteorology. Take this chance to ask professionals about how they got their jobs, what they do, and what you can do now to prepare yourself to follow in their footsteps.
During this breakout session, you will have an opportunity to attend two unique panels designed to highlight a range of careers in meteorology. Take this chance to ask professionals about how they got their jobs, what they do, and what you can do now to prepare yourself to follow in their footsteps.
During this breakout session, you will have an opportunity to attend two unique panels designed to highlight a range of careers in meteorology. Take this chance to ask professionals about how they got their jobs, what they do, and what you can do now to prepare yourself to follow in their footsteps.
During this breakout session, you will have an opportunity to attend two unique panels designed to highlight a range of careers in meteorology. Take this chance to ask professionals about how they got their jobs, what they do, and what you can do now to prepare yourself to follow in their footsteps.
11:15 AM-12:00 PM: Saturday, 6 January 2018
During this breakout session, you will have an opportunity to attend two unique panels designed to highlight a range of careers in meteorology. Take this chance to ask professionals about how they got their jobs, what they do, and what you can do now to prepare yourself to follow in their footsteps.
During this breakout session, you will have an opportunity to attend two unique panels designed to highlight a range of careers in meteorology. Take this chance to ask professionals about how they got their jobs, what they do, and what you can do now to prepare yourself to follow in their footsteps.
During this breakout session, you will have an opportunity to attend two unique panels designed to highlight a range of careers in meteorology. Take this chance to ask professionals about how they got their jobs, what they do, and what you can do now to prepare yourself to follow in their footsteps.
During this breakout session, you will have an opportunity to attend two unique panels designed to highlight a range of careers in meteorology. Take this chance to ask professionals about how they got their jobs, what they do, and what you can do now to prepare yourself to follow in their footsteps.
12:00 PM-1:00 PM: Saturday, 6 January 2018
Student Conference Luncheon
Location: Exhibit Hall 5 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
1:00 PM-1:30 PM: Saturday, 6 January 2018
We've assembled a group of professionals that represent a variety of career paths who want to talk to you! During this session preview, each speaker will give a 2-3 minute introduction on who they are, what they do, and why you'll want to talk with them in the next session. Make sure to note their room numbers!
1:35 PM-3:45 PM: Saturday, 6 January 2018
Learn about the wide variety of careers in meteorology and related fields. The small-group setting of this session provides a chance to really have conversations with top professionals about their journeys. Note: Each rotation will consist of a 20-minute discussion period, followed by a 7 minute transition period. (5 discussions).
Learn about the wide variety of careers in meteorology and related fields. The small-group setting of this session provides a chance to really have conversations with top professionals about their journeys. Note: Each rotation will consist of a 20-minute discussion period, followed by a 7 minute transition period. (5 discussions).
Learn about the wide variety of careers in meteorology and related fields. The small-group setting of this session provides a chance to really have conversations with top professionals about their journeys. Note: Each rotation will consist of a 20-minute discussion period, followed by a 7 minute transition period. (5 discussions).
Learn about the wide variety of careers in meteorology and related fields. The small-group setting of this session provides a chance to really have conversations with top professionals about their journeys. Note: Each rotation will consist of a 20-minute discussion period, followed by a 7 minute transition period. (5 discussions).
Learn about the wide variety of careers in meteorology and related fields. The small-group setting of this session provides a chance to really have conversations with top professionals about their journeys. Note: Each rotation will consist of a 20-minute discussion period, followed by a 7 minute transition period. (5 discussions).
Learn about the wide variety of careers in meteorology and related fields. The small-group setting of this session provides a chance to really have conversations with top professionals about their journeys. Note: Each rotation will consist of a 20-minute discussion period, followed by a 7 minute transition period. (5 discussions).
Learn about the wide variety of careers in meteorology and related fields. The small-group setting of this session provides a chance to really have conversations with top professionals about their journeys. Note: Each rotation will consist of a 20-minute discussion period, followed by a 7 minute transition period. (5 discussions).
Learn about the wide variety of careers in meteorology and related fields. The small-group setting of this session provides a chance to really have conversations with top professionals about their journeys. Note: Each rotation will consist of a 20-minute discussion period, followed by a 7 minute transition period. (5 discussions).
Learn about the wide variety of careers in meteorology and related fields. The small-group setting of this session provides a chance to really have conversations with top professionals about their journeys. Note: Each rotation will consist of a 20-minute discussion period, followed by a 7 minute transition period. (5 discussions).
Learn about the wide variety of careers in meteorology and related fields. The small-group setting of this session provides a chance to really have conversations with top professionals about their journeys. Note: Each rotation will consist of a 20-minute discussion period, followed by a 7 minute transition period. (5 discussions).
Learn about the wide variety of careers in meteorology and related fields. The small-group setting of this session provides a chance to really have conversations with top professionals about their journeys. Note: Each rotation will consist of a 20-minute discussion period, followed by a 7 minute transition period. (5 discussions).
This panel session will run concurrently with Conversations with Professionals and feature current graduate students. Two groups of students will split the rotations to allow for multiple points of view. Join one group or both, but be sure to come with questions for the panelists!
This panel session will run concurrently with Conversations with Professionals and feature current graduate students. Two groups of students will split the rotations to allow for multiple points of view. Join one group or both, but be sure to come with questions for the panelists!
Have you applied to graduate school, or are you planning to do so? This is your chance to listen and ask questions about the graduate school admissions process from faculty and staff who know it the best! This panel session will run concurrently with all five rotations of Conversations with Professionals.
3:45 PM-4:00 PM: Saturday, 6 January 2018
Student Conference PM Break
Location: EFG Foyer (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
4:00 PM-5:00 PM: Saturday, 6 January 2018
Ever wondered how weather forecast is used to inform emergency managers and other decision-makers? This session will familiarize you with the Integrated Warning Team and provide information about how to get started with emergency management.
In today's competitive job market, recruiters get hundreds of applications per job position. How will you make sure you stand out and secure an interview? A good resume is the first step! Come to this session to learn what it takes to prepare a good resume or CV, as well as specialized tips for the different sectors.
5:30 PM-7:30 PM: Saturday, 6 January 2018
AMS Career Fair
Location: Exhibit Hall 5 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
The Career Fair is an excellent opportunity for job seekers and organizations to network. Job seekers can interview on site, in a one-on-one setting, with organizations looking to recruit highly talented individuals. Organizations can attract the attention of more than 4,000 professionals, recent graduates, and students in attendance.
Sunday, 7 January 2018
7:00 AM-12:00 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Scout Event
Location: Room 4ABC (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
AMS is offering Girl Scout Juniors and Boy Scouts an opportunity to earn the Weather-Ready Nation patch at this year’s Annual Meeting.
7:30 AM-8:00 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
AMS Information Desk
Location: Austin, Texas
Registration
Location: Atrium Lobby (Austin, Texas)
8:00 AM-9:00 AM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Student Conference Breakfast
Location: EFG Foyer (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
8:30 AM-9:00 AM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Meet President Roger M. Wakimoto and Presidential Forum Speaker Richard Alley
Location: EFG Foyer (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
This is a special event for Students and Early Career Professionals. Check back soon for more information.
9:00 AM-9:30 AM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Get a review of the world's recent extreme weather events from the experts who forecast and research them.
9:00 AM-9:45 AM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Opening remarks from the Board of Early Career Professionals and the Opportunity to Interact with Fellow Early Career Professionals.
9:30 AM-9:45 AM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Student Conference AM Break 1
9:45 AM-10:40 AM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
It doesn't matter where you are or where you're going with your career; there is always something more you can do to prepare yourself! This breakout session focuses on strategies to help you succeed.
9:45 AM-11:45 AM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
10:15 AM-11:45 AM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
We will learn how to choose the proper format, content, and tone of a presentation for a given setting.
We will explore why good decision making is key to writing effectively, and discuss tips for navigating the process.
In this session, we will discuss the importance of tailoring communication to your audience, and a blueprint for doing so.
10:40 AM-10:50 AM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Student Conference AM Break 2
10:50 AM-11:45 AM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Employers in forecasting, research, broadcasting and nearly all other careers under the AMS umbrella seek applicants who possess not only scientific expertise, but also proficiency with specialized software platforms and programming languages ("Tools"). Sometimes the task of learning a new tool can seem daunting, and it's hard to know where to begin; this session will help you get started through a series of short talks introducing some of the "tools" used in different AMS-related careers.
One of the greatest challenges of the scientific community, regardless of sector, is communication of their work and its societal implications. Social media platforms add additional challenges because of the instantaneous way information (both good and bad) can spread. This panel will discuss the intricacies of using social media to communicate science, climate, severe weather, risks, and other topics.
11:45 AM-12:00 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Student Conference AM Break 3
11:45 AM-1:00 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Conference for Early Career Professionals Lunch Break (On Your Own)
12:00 PM-12:30 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
12:00 PM-3:45 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Speaker Ready Room
Location: Room 11AB (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
12:00 PM-4:00 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
WeatherFest
Location: Exhibit Hall 1 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
12:30 PM-12:35 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
12:35 PM-2:00 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Student Conference Lunch Break (On Your Own)
1:00 PM-1:30 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Implicit bias is an overlooked topic within the field of science and can impair one's ability to communicate or to objectively provide input or received information. This panel will define implicit bias and how this subtle topic affects everything from receiving a forecast by the public to how journals/proposals can be reviewed differently based on the author or reviewer.
1:30 PM-2:00 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Conflict comes in many forms. This session provides tips and actions one can take to resolve a disagreement to unify a team, or help each side understand the differing viewpoints.
2:00 PM-3:00 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
This panel will discuss where the job market currently stands and future directions jobs related to meteorology (and science in general) are trending. The discussion will also include skills that an early career scientist should be working toward that are not typically taught in the classroom.
2:00 PM-3:30 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
During a severe weather event, it takes a team of leaders pooling their respective skills to ensure public safety. Join professionals from the broadcast and public sectors of meteorology, emergency managers, and other leaders in an interactive demonstration of two Integrated Warning Team exercises. With the guidance of these professionals, you will learn how all of these groups collaborate to protect the public, and how physical science and social science intertwine to support decision-making.
2:00 PM-3:45 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Bring your resume to get tailored feedback from job recruiters and professionals across the many sectors of our profession.
Watch aspiring broadcast in action! Submitted tapes from students will be viewed and critiques by a panel of professional meteorologists. Learn the dos and don'ts of broadcast meteorology by watching the panel's constructive criticism.
Writing skills are increasingly important in the meteorological fields. However, writing has different expectations for different forms! Attend this workshop where you’ll hear from different professionals on writing tips for lab reports, abstracts, journal articles, and more. There will be an hour of hands-on writing activities with your submissions to help you gain the most you can from this workshop.
3:00 PM-3:45 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Newcomer's Welcome and Informational Exchange
Location: Room 19AB (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
This session is designed to provide first-time attendees with an overview of the Annual Meeting and suggestions on how to get the most out of their time while attending the meeting.
Brief remarks from incoming President Dr. Roger Wakimoto and the opportunity to network with other AMS professionals prior to the Presidential Keynote.
4:00 PM-5:00 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Presidential Forum
Location: Ballroom D (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
Austin Convention Center, Ballroom DAMS is excited to announce the keynote speaker for the upcoming 98th Annual Meeting will be renowned glaciologist and climate scientist Richard Alley, who serves as the Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences at Penn State University.
5:15 PM-6:15 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
98th Annual Review, New Fellows, Featured Awards and Business Meeting
Location: Ballroom G (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
Please join Roger Wakimoto, AMS President-Elect and Acting President, for his review of major events from the past year.
6:15 PM-8:15 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
AMS Career Fair
Location: Exhibit Hall 5 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
The Career Fair is an excellent opportunity for job seekers and organizations to network. Job seekers can interview on site, in a one-on-one setting, with organizations looking to recruit highly talented individuals. Organizations can attract the attention of more than 4,000 professionals, recent graduates, and students in attendance.
Student Conference Poster Session
Location: Exhibit Hall 5 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
All attendees are invited to stop by the Student Conference poster session, where undergraduate and graduate Student Conference attendees showcase their research.
6:30 PM-7:30 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Welcome Reception Honoring Newly Elected Fellows and Featured Award Winners
Location: EFG Foyer (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
7:00 PM-9:00 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
Colour of Weather Reception
Location: 408 (Hilton) (Austin, Texas)
Please join us at the 17th Annual Colour of Weather Reception for appetizers, expanding social networks, and exploring our commonalities. All Are Welcome!
7:00 PM-9:30 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
American Weather and Climate Industry Association (AWCIA) and Early Career Professionals Reception
Location: Salon J (Hilton) (Austin, Texas)
The annual American Weather and Climate Industry Association (AWCIA) will be held Sunday, January 7, 2018, from 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm. This year in honoring Matt Parker, the AWCIA Reception will also include the Early Career Professionals (ECP). This year, more than any prior year, we wish to celebrate our successful efforts in building a strong, healthy and capable American Weather Enterprise, and our reception will be a great opportunity to visit with old friends. Please plan to join us in Austin!
7:30 PM-9:30 PM: Sunday, 7 January 2018
CoRiolis Reception
Location: 602 (Hilton) (Austin, Texas)
The Coriolis reception brings together lesbian–gay–bisexual–transgender–queer (LGBTQ) friends and allies to mentor, network, and connect with individuals who share common professional and personal interests. The reception will feature a keynote speaker, Ms. Jessica Mink, who is a positional astronomer and software developer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO).
Monday, 8 January 2018
7:15 AM-8:15 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
This mini-workshop is designed to enable participants to use simple guidelines to create more memorable and effective presentations for conference audiences. Participants will learn: 1. The basic rules of clear organization of information 2. How to think about the audience 3.How to use visual aids well 4.How to develop a bottom line message 5.How to become more confident in presenting. This workshop will be broken into three intense units: learning the basics, developing a message and presentation, delivering that presentation. This hands-on, immediate application of principles will enable participants to revise their own individual presentations for more effective and rewarding results.Workshop Leader: Dr. Susan Jasko
7:30 AM-6:00 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
AMS Information Desk
Location: Austin, Texas
Registration
Location: Atrium Lobby (Austin, Texas)
Speaker Ready Room
Location: Room 11AB (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
8:00 AM-5:30 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Local Chapter Posters
Location: Exhibit Hall 3 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
AMS local chapters will display posters related to their chapter history and activities at the 98th Annual Meeting. The posters will highlight all the interesting and exciting activities that AMS local chapters are involved in.
8:30 AM-8:45 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
8:45 AM-9:00 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
8:45 AM-9:30 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Core science keynote for the Eighth Symposium on Advances in Modeling and Analysis Using Python
Land surface states indicate climate variability and affect atmospheric composition (e.g., reactive trace gases, carbon dioxide, methane, and aerosols), which feeds back to the climate and the land surface conditions. The proposed session welcomes the submission of abstracts on studying the connections between land surface conditions and atmospheric composition using diverse observations (ground, aircraft, and satellites), modeling, and data assimilation. These studies can be on small to large temporal and spatial scales.
8:45 AM-9:45 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Aerosols capable of absorbing sunlight such as smoke and dust interact with their larger-scale environment through processes that are distinct from those linked to scattering-only aerosols. Prevailing wind patterns can transport the dust and smoke far from their sources, providing vast spatial coverages. The diabatic heating from shortwave absorption provides a warming to climate, affecting regional cloud and precipitation patterns. The aerosol impacts depend on the amount of sunlight absorbed, which in turn is sensitive to the single-scattering albedo, the aerosol loading, and the albedo underlying the aerosol layer. The small-scale radiative-cloud interactions will depend on the relative vertical cloud-aerosol location. Clouds can thicken, for example through an increase in the lower-tropospheric stability, or thin, for example through a decrease of relative humidity if temperatures increase in the boundary layer. The cloud response will also differ depending on how the attenuated solar radiation affects the surface and boundary layer turbulent fluxes (e.g., if the surface is ocean or land). Aerosol deposition is also important to the surface properties. Presentations are solicited on the scientific advancements in the characterization of the aerosol properties, and the processes through which the aerosol heating interacts with its environment at all scales, from cloud-scale to the large-scale circulation. These include fieldwork, lab experiments, and modeling investigations.
Soil dust from a variety of sources contributes a major fraction to the atmospheric aerosol and has strong impacts on the environment, the weather systems, and the global climate. The goal of this session is to bring together scientists from different disciplines working on the emission, atmospheric transport, transformation, physical, and chemical characterization, as well as cloud, weather, and climate impacts of soil dust from deserts, semi-arid regions, or agricultural areas. Of particular interest are questions about the speciation and atmospheric impact of different mineral, organic, and biological components in the soil dust of different origin. We invite and welcome laboratory, field, and modeling contributions from the general areas of (1) mineralogy, organic content, and other constituents of dust sampled from source regions or directly from the atmosphere; (2) emission fluxes, transport, and chemical transformation of dust in the atmosphere; and (3) cloud, weather, and climate impact, including optical properties and cloud microphysics like CCN activation and heterogeneous ice nucleation.
8:45 AM-10:00 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Advances in Data Assimilation
N/A
A panel presentation is proposed to share preliminary results from a series of stakeholder engagement sessions on prototype flash flood products as well as an initial ranking of existing, experimental, and potential new products/services across the entire spectrum of water resources needs as depicted in the above figure. Input will be solicited from participants in this session to obtain their views of priority needs and to their thoughts on the next steps for this assessment.
Representation of Model Uncertainty
Planned session from BEST CEM
Flood frequency analyses and probable maximum flood (PMF) studies are integral aspects of hydrologic design requirements and provide for the establishment of policies and risk assessments to both people and property. Precipitation frequency analysis and probable maximum precipitation (PMP) estimation are often included in flood frequency and PMF computations, respectively. Both approaches, probabilistic and deterministic, have limitations that would benefit from further research. For example, both approaches often fail to account for nonstationary conditions and spatial and multivariate effects. The impact of nonstationarity on hydrometeorological extremes is difficult to quantify yet important to understand because these changes may have significant implications for risk analyses and new infrastructure design as well as operations and management of existing infrastructure. For PMP estimates, basin-specific studies or general reports (such as the NOAA Hydrometeorological Report series) have been completed for decades, yet there remains a significant amount of misunderstanding and confusion within the water resources community as to development of these estimates as well as the limitations of the usage. The need for a detailed understanding of the physical processes of the atmosphere is great, as precipitation values from either precipitation frequency analyses or PMP estimates provide the basis for almost all flood hazard studies. Values that are too high can cause an overestimate of flooding and result in costly and unnecessary modifications to dam or levee structures. Underestimates of precipitation, conversely, could generate a higher risk of hydrologic failure, which could be devastating to communities near any faulty projects. Ultimately, these precipitation estimates and flood analyses must be communicated to policy makers at all levels of the government, as well as any at-risk populations. Including estimates of uncertainty in frequency analyses and PMP may increase the usefulness of such studies to decision-makers. This session covers a vital subject that demonstrates the critical link between meteorologists and engineers, as well as the general public, with regard to the impacts and risks in the weather and water enterprise. This session is expected to focus on new and emerging methods for probabilistic and PMP analyses and the estimation of hydrometeorological extremes. Subjects within this topic can include frequency analyses, uncertainty quantification, analysis of extreme storm events, case studies addressing climate and land-use changes, and communication of flood risk to the public.
Improved educational materials and efforts are required to raise awareness and understanding of the interactions between weather extremes, climate variability, climate change, and health. This is true at multiple levels of education, including secondary schools, undergraduate and graduate schools, and health professional training. Incorporation of health into earth and environmental science courses helps students connect those sciences to societal impacts and needs. Conversely, teaching health impacts of weather and climate factors to health professionals expands their problem solving and public health preventive skills. This session will highlight recent innovations in teaching the interactions of health, weather and climate in various settings.
This session presents some of the most significant drought and wildfire events in 2017.
DOE projects and international collaborations for renewable energy.
This session will look at some of the many new facilities that are coming into existence as well as being proposed. Existing facilities are being upgraded or are developing new techniques. The focus of these two sessions will be on the way these new observational capabilities support the space weather enterprise.
As decision-makers prepare for a changing climate or weather extremes, they look to the research community for answers to local or regional questions. Boundary organizations, such as U.S. DOI Climate Science Centers, NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments programs, USDA Climate Hubs, state climate offices, and others, are positioned to address these challenges through co-production of knowledge with researchers and stakeholders. That is, researchers affiliated with these weather and climate boundary organizations are engaging decision-makers directly in the research process. But co-production requires both of these groups to transform their traditional methods of communication (or lack thereof) with one another. Many of these organizations have hired communications specialists to help translate science into decisions or have developed training and outreach events that bring stakeholders and researchers together. These actions have enhanced communications between both groups, ultimately leading to long-term partnerships, more actionable research products, and better understanding of research needs. This session seeks to highlight examples of projects that have benefited from co-production of knowledge with decision-makers and boundary organizations, what methods of communication between these groups have been effective, and how to educate the next generation of leaders in co-producing knowledge.
This session aims to bring attention to those applications, technologies, or techniques that are well advanced with respect to the Technology Readiness Level continuum.
Ammonia is a key ingredient in many of today's air quality challenges. It is an important contributor to fine particle formation and to excess nitrogen deposition. Because it is not a regulated pollutant, its atmospheric concentrations, sources, and sinks are not as well known as for many other air pollutants. This session seeks to highlight ongoing research efforts that add to our knowledge of atmospheric ammonia, its sources, and its environmental impacts. Topics of interest include efforts to characterize ammonia sources, new efforts to measure ammonia concentrations in the ambient atmosphere, studies of ammonia contributions to fine particle and haze formation, and contributions of ammonia to nitrogen deposition. Both observational (in situ and remote sensing) and model-based investigations are welcome.
This session allows agencies with weather-related activities and missions to present the current state of their operations and development.
Global food security represents a major societal challenge for the coming decades. Growing human population, increased demand for water and energy, and a changing climate have contributed to expanded concerns centered on food supply, production, resiliency, and price volatility. The global food system involves production and distribution with multiple stages in supply chains. Food security is inherently an issue involving natural aspects as well as social, economic, and political dimensions. There are opportunities to link environmental observations with social and economic data to generate information and provide insights to improve assessments of food security challenges and enhance agricultural practices. Earth observations and Earth science data, models, and knowledge provide essential information and tools to support the functioning and resilience of food systems. For example, Earth observations have proven helpful with estimations of crop area and cropping intensities, agricultural productivity assessments, water planning and irrigation management, and crop yield modeling on a range of time scales. New research continues to expand the areas in which Earth observation informs food security effort. This session explores how products enabled by Earth observations can help transform food security—especially when observations are combined with information on the broader food system. We further examine how uses of remote sensing and geospatial data can enhance organizations' planning and operations as well as support broader food security assessments, commodity pricing, risk assessments, and policy analysis. We invite submissions on (i) research advancing capabilities to apply Earth observation data within models and software tools to inform agricultural decision-making; (ii) research combining data, models, and methods derived from both social science and physical science to respond to food security challenges; and (iii) examples of programmatic and technical approaches to build capacity within the food security and agricultural community to harness Earth observations to inform decision-making.
This session will focus on the development of an effective resume that stands out during the job application process.
8:45 AM-10:15 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
9:00 AM-9:45 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
9:00 AM-11:00 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Spouse's Coffee
Location: 602 (Hilton) (Austin, Texas)
9:30 AM-10:00 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
This session, opening the symposium, will deal with scaling tasks in python to many cores.
9:45 AM-10:00 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
10:00 AM-10:30 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
10:00 AM-6:00 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Member Services Desk
Location: Atrium Lobby (Austin, Texas)
10:30 AM-11:45 AM: Monday, 8 January 2018
10:30 AM-12:00 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
The 2018 AMS Annual Meeting Planning Sub-Committee for Vulnerable Populations will host a panel discussion, allowing members of, or advocates for, underserved communities to educate the audience on considerations for their communities and how the Weather Enterprise could serve them more effectively. Panelists representing various vulnerabilities, such as the inability to hear or see, lack English literacy, or difficulty evacuating, will talk about their experiences during severe weather events and their needs.
Research shows that students benefit from active learning strategies in the classroom. In this session we request proposals for demonstrations of successful activities that attendees could use in their own teaching. Demonstrations should be active, i.e., the audience members should be called on to participate in them, or a video should be shown of students performing the activity. Demonstrations should take no more than 13 minutes and be accompanied by a handout outlining the activity for participants to take home. Each demonstrator will have 2 minutes at the start of the session to introduce their activity, the grade/educational level it is aimed at and the learning context that their activity fits into. Demonstrators will then simultaneously present through the rest of the session in a share-a-thon format, with attendees free to move between tables/activities. We ask that abstracts briefly outline the activity and learning objective, educational level the activity is aimed at, and any requests for demonstration space (e.g. video screen, table, large open space).
This session will broadly explore the relationships between a changing climate and the direct or indirect impacts to the health and well-being of humans.
Current and Future Observing Systems
N/A
Some in congress and the administration are proposing to pare back a number of budgets at NOAA, NASA, NSF, USGS, and other agencies and programs that compose the U.S. weather, water, and climate enterprise. What are the current proposals, and what is driving them? Where would budget cuts likely fall, and how might they impact the AMS community? How likely are they to come to pass? More broadly, how is the federal budget environment evolving over the long-term for the weather, water, and climate community, and what can we expect in 2018 and beyond? Come to this special session to hear from budget experts and policymakers about the current state of play and what else you should know if you care about federal support for the AMS community.
This session discusses some of the most significant cool season events of 2017.
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The total solar eclipse that will occur on 21 August 2017 will have its path of totality over the continental United States. Talks from this session will highlight early results from observations of the eclipse with an emphasis on space weather impacts. Presentations from citizen science activities related to the solar eclipse are also welcome.
Drought is a multifaceted phenomenon that challenges our current monitoring and prediction capabilities. Taking drought prediction and hydrological applications to the next level requires advances in understanding, monitoring, communications, and water resources management. Specific topics addressed by presenters could include, but are not limited to, current drought prediction science and skill at various lead times, innovative management uses of that science, and case studies illustrating advances in understanding, monitoring, and prediction of drought and drought impacts. Further, papers addressing gaps and deficiencies in our current methods for monitoring and predicting droughts and estimating its effects on vegetation, water resources, and human populations are also invited.
This session aims to bring attention to those applications, technologies, or techniques that are well advanced with respect to the Technology Readiness Level continuum.
The presentations in this session discuss technologies used for distributing and communicating Earth science and climate products for supporting decision makers.
The precipitation session focuses on precipitation observation, modeling, estimation, and applications of in situ and remotely sensed precipitation products. Topics include, but are not limited to, (1) precipitation processes and modeling, (2) advances in remote sensing of precipitation from satellite and radar platforms, (3) recent development pertaining to fusion and downscaling of precipitation products, (4) assimilation of precipitation and precipitation-related variables in NWP models, and (5) impacts of improving precipitation estimates on hydrologic and land surface modeling.
Using Python to work with model and other data sources
Ammonia is a key ingredient in many of today's air quality challenges. It is an important contributor to fine particle formation and to excess nitrogen deposition. Because it is not a regulated pollutant, its atmospheric concentrations, sources, and sinks are not as well known as for many other air pollutants. This session seeks to highlight ongoing research efforts that add to our knowledge of atmospheric ammonia, its sources, and its environmental impacts. Topics of interest include efforts to characterize ammonia sources, new efforts to measure ammonia concentrations in the ambient atmosphere, studies of ammonia contributions to fine particle and haze formation, and contributions of ammonia to nitrogen deposition. Both observational (in situ and remote sensing) and model-based investigations are welcome.
N/A
Aerosol–cloud interactions have significant influences on natural climate variability and are also one of the largest uncertainties in the estimate of anthropogenic climate forcing. This session seeks presentations of recent research work that advances the understanding of how various aerosol–cloud interactions impact the local and/or global radiative energy budget and consequent implications for climate change. We welcome discussion forums related to i) how microphysical interactions between aerosol and cloud modulate the cloud radiative properties and radiative effects (e.g., Twomey and lifetime effect), ii) how the relative position of aerosol and cloud (e.g., aerosol above, below, and inside clouds) influences the radiative energy distribution, and iii) novel measurement (remote sensing and in situ) and modeling techniques to quantify the impacts of aerosol–cloud interactions on radiation.
This Joint Session with the AMS Leadership Academy will focus on the development of leadership skills related to early career professionals. Both Presentations and a panel discussion will take place during this brand new session.
12:00 PM-2:00 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
12:15 PM-1:15 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
The AMS has experienced substantial growth and shifts in terms of its membership, since its inception in 1919. Over the past few decades, the Society has made great strides towards increased representation and higher status of women and underrepresented minorities in atmospheric science and related fields. As the AMS inches closer to its Centennial Celebration, it revisits the shifting characteristics of its membership in order to explore ways in which the Society must change to best serve the needs of its diverse membership and clarify the Society’s objectives in the next century. Led by the Board on Women and Minorities (BWM), the purpose of this Town Hall is to discuss ways in which the weather, water, and climate enterprise can reap the full benefits of an environment in which biases are minimized, and the principles of inclusion, diversity, and equity are interwoven seamlessly with scientific excellence.
The NASA Earth science flight program is a dynamic undertaking consisting of a large fleet of operating satellites, an array of satellite and instrument projects, a robust airborne science program which advances the use of satellite data, and a massive data archiving and distribution system. NASA’s fleet of 20 operating missions provides a wide range of scientific measurements obtained from dedicated Earth science satellites and the ISS. Projects in development are divided into categories: 1. Earth Systematic Missions (ESM), 2. Earth System Science Pathfinders (ESSP). The Earth Science Flight Program benefits from investments by the Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) to develop and demonstrate cutting-edge technologies that can be applied to future NASA Earth science measurements/missions. As the NASA program evolves it will leverage the lessons learned from the current missions and plan for adjustments to future objectives. A limited number of boxed lunches will be provided by Orbital ATK.
NOAA and NASA are examining procurement of commercial space-based weather and Earth science data to support their agency's mission needs. While each agency is seeking data for unique missions and thus will have unique requirements, a coordinated approach to the procurement and use of space-based commercial data can benefit both government customers and commercial providers. This panel will address each agency's current programs for procuring commercial data and the areas where coordination is most important.
12:15 PM-1:45 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Presidential Town Hall Meeting: The Devastating 2017 Hurricane Season: Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Directions for the Weather Enterprise
Location: Ballroom D (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
The 2017 hurricane season brought three category 4 land falling hurricanes to the United States, affecting millions of Americans in Texas, Florida, and across Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. The significant impacts from the wind damage, storm surge, and precipitation, in addition to the disruption to the economy, will not be fully realized for years to come. More importantly, the American Meteorological Society and its members recognize and empathize with the intense heartache and pain suffered by thousands of displaced residents and survivors. AMS will highlight Hurricane's Harvey, Irma and Maria with a Presidential Town Hall Meeting on Monday during its Annual Meeting. Topics to be addressed at the symposium include an overview of the season and it's impacts, the forecasts, communication and response, the extent to which climate change may or may not have contributed, the social costs of these hurricanes, and the plans for recovery and resilience. For additional information, please contact Tanja Fransen (tanja.fransen@noaa.gov).
2:00 PM-2:15 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
2:00 PM-2:45 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
2:00 PM-3:00 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
2018 Haurwitz Lecture
Core Science Keynote Presentations
N/A
2:00 PM-3:15 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
2:00 PM-3:30 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Tools developed using Python to visualize and extract insight from data sources
2:00 PM-4:00 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
This session will look at some of the many new facilities that are coming into existence as well as being proposed. Existing facilities are being upgraded or are developing new techniques. The focus of these two sessions will be on the way these new observational capabilities support the space weather enterprise.
2:00 PM-4:15 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Perspectives from students by students about their “takeaways” from the Forum
Increasing demand on the accuracy of 5-day forecast to subseasonal to seasonal (S2S) and climate prediction requires advanced research on coupled modeling between the atmosphere, ocean, land, sea ice, and hydrology. Initialization of these models is an important aspect of forecasting in the coupled system. This session solicits contributions on impacts of new data types on coupled process modeling, impacts of initialization across the coupled interface, coupled data assimilation, and other aspects of initialization in the coupled modeling framework. Submissions representing all spatial scales (i.e., global, regional, mesoscale) are encouraged.
This session discusses some of the most significant events international and US weather, water, climate events.
WFIP2
Drought is a multifaceted phenomenon that challenges our current monitoring and prediction capabilities. Taking drought prediction and hydrological applications to the next level requires advances in understanding, monitoring, communications, and water resources management. Specific topics addressed by presenters could include, but are not limited to, current drought prediction science and skill at various lead times, innovative management uses of that science, and case studies illustrating advances in understanding, monitoring, and prediction of drought and drought impacts. Further, papers addressing gaps and deficiencies in our current methods for monitoring and predicting droughts and estimating its effects on vegetation, water resources, and human populations are also invited.
Ensuring that environmental hazard impact information is based on the best science and is available and of value to those that need it is fundamentally important if societies are to be able to plan, prepare, respond, and recover from such disasters. This session welcomes presentations on how scientifically based environmental hazard information can be made useful, usable, and used.
As the twenty-first century progresses and economic growth continues in many parts of the world, there is more at stake—and more to lose—from extreme weather and climate events. While, fortunately, scientific advances and good policy decisions have been able to reduce loss of life from these events in many areas of the world, livelihoods, property assets, and infrastructure are increasingly vulnerable. At the same time, it is becoming hard to predict the patterns of these extremes. Past experience is no longer a reliable guide to their future severity or frequency. This situation calls for the building of resilience—the capacity of a system to continue to maintain its structure and function in the face of disturbance, while also keeping options open for future development. Building resilience does not mean building rigidity, however. Resilient systems must be more flexible, more nimble, and more responsive to changing economic and social conditions. One of the ways to build resilience and flexibility is to build effective networks of partners to catalyze rapid development and ongoing dissemination of information and best practices so that businesses, governments and households can respond in a timely way to changing conditions. Resources are finite, however. There are more and less efficient ways to organize and effectively build capacity and learning networks. In this session we focus on examples and lessons learned from building sustained partnerships for knowledge exchange and risk management across a variety of contexts and scales. Highlighting examples from (but not limited to) drought, wildfire, and coastal and inland flooding, we examine the value of sustained partnerships for avoiding damage and property loss, and ultimately, building resilience in an uncertain world. Papers from a wide variety of contexts and cases are encouraged.
The presentations in this session discuss technologies used for distributing and communicating Earth science and climate products for supporting decision makers.
The precipitation session focuses on precipitation observation, modeling, estimation, and applications of in situ and remotely sensed precipitation products. Topics include, but are not limited to, (1) precipitation processes and modeling, (2) advances in remote sensing of precipitation from satellite and radar platforms, (3) recent development pertaining to fusion and downscaling of precipitation products, (4) assimilation of precipitation and precipitation-related variables in NWP models, and (5) impacts of improving precipitation estimates on hydrologic and land surface modeling.
Health providers and researchers need environmental data to study and understand the geographic, environmental, and meteorological differences in disease. Satellite remote sensing of the environment offers a unique vantage point that can fill in the gaps of environmental, spatial, and temporal data for tracking disease. Demonstrating the need for collaborations between multidisciplinary research groups to develop the full potential of utilizing Earth Observations in studying health is essential in today's world. Satellite earth observations present a unique vantage point of the earth's environment from space, which offers a wealth of health applications for the imaginative investigators. As part of NASA approach and methodology they have used Earth Observation Systems and Applications for Health and Air Quality Models to provide a method for bridging gaps of environmental, spatial, and temporal data for tracking disease. This presentation how weather will provide an overview of projects dealing with infectious and waterborne diseases and how environmental variables affect human health.
2:15 PM-4:15 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
2:45 PM-4:00 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
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.
3:00 PM-4:00 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
3:15 PM-4:15 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
N/A
N/A
3:30 PM-4:00 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
With the rapid development of AI techniques in meteorological and environmental disciplines, a significant amount of research is occurring in the private sector, and in collaborations between companies and academia. This session will focus on AI applications in private companies and public−private partnerships, showcasing new approaches and implementations that leverage AI to help solve complex problems.
3:30 PM-4:15 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
4:00 PM-4:15 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
4:15 PM-6:00 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Formal Poster Viewing with Coffee Break
Location: Exhibit Hall 3 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
This is the poster presentation session for the 20th Conference on Atmospheric Chemistry, organized by the AMS Committee on Atmospheric Chemistry.
Global food security represents a major societal challenge for the coming decades. Growing human population, increased demand for water and energy, and a changing climate have contributed to expanded concerns centered on food supply, production, resiliency, and price volatility. The global food system involves production and distribution with multiple stages in supply chains. Food security is inherently an issue involving natural aspects as well as social, economic, and political dimensions. There are opportunities to link environmental observations with social and economic data to generate information and provide insights to improve assessments of food security challenges and enhance agricultural practices. Earth observations and Earth science data, models, and knowledge provide essential information and tools to support the functioning and resilience of food systems. For example, Earth observations have proven helpful with estimations of crop area and cropping intensities, agricultural productivity assessments, water planning and irrigation management, and crop yield modeling on a range of time scales. New research continues to expand the areas in which Earth observation informs food security effort. This session explores how products enabled by Earth observations can help transform food security—especially when observations are combined with information on the broader food system. We further examine how uses of remote sensing and geospatial data can enhance organizations' planning and operations, as well as support broader food security assessments, commodity pricing, risk assessments, and policy analysis. We invite submissions on (i) research advancing capabilities to apply Earth observation data within models and software tools to inform agricultural decision-making; (ii) research combining data, models, and methods derived from both social science and physical science to respond to food security challenges; (iii) examples of programmatic and technical approaches to build capacity within the food security and agricultural community to harness Earth observations to inform decision-making.
Aerosol–Cloud–Climate Interactions Posters
Drought is a multifaceted phenomenon that challenges our current monitoring and prediction capabilities. Taking drought prediction and hydrological applications to the next level requires advances in understanding, monitoring, communications, and water resources management. Specific topics addressed by presenters could include, but are not limited to, current drought prediction science and skill at various lead times, innovative management uses of that science, and case studies illustrating advances in understanding, monitoring, and prediction of drought and drought impacts. Further, papers addressing gaps and deficiencies in our current methods for monitoring and predicting drought and estimating its effects on vegetation, water resources, and human populations are also invited.
Monday poster session.
Nationwide Network of Networks—Poster Sessions
Education initiatives are highlighted.
Poster Submissions from All Topic Areas
First general posters session
Poster presentations for the space weather conference.
Flood frequency analyses and probable maximum flood (PMF) studies are integral aspects of hydrologic design requirements and provide for the establishment of policies and risk assessments to both people and property. Precipitation frequency analysis and probable maximum precipitation (PMP) estimation are often included in flood frequency and PMF computations, respectively. Both approaches, probabilistic and deterministic, have limitations that would benefit from further research. For example, both approaches often fail to account for nonstationary conditions and spatial and multivariate effects. The impact of nonstationarity on hydrometeorological extremes is difficult to quantify, yet important to understand, because these changes may have significant implications for risk analyses, new infrastructure design, as well as operations and management of existing infrastructure. For PMP estimates, basin specific studies or general reports (such as the NOAA Hydrometeorological Report series) have been completed for decades, yet there remains a significant amount of misunderstanding and confusion within the water resources community as to development of these estimates as well as the limitations to the usage. The need for a detailed understanding of the physical processes of the atmosphere is great, as precipitation values from either precipitation frequency analyses or PMP estimates provide the basis for almost all flood hazard studies. Values that are too high can result in an overestimate of flooding and result in costly and unnecessary modifications to dam or levee structures. Underestimates of precipitation, conversely, could place a higher risk of hydrologic failure, which could be devastating to communities near any faulty projects. Ultimately, these precipitation estimates and flood analyses must be communicated to policy makers at all levels of the government, as well as any at-risk populations. Including estimates of uncertainty in frequency analyses and PMP may increase the usefulness of such studies to decision-makers. This session covers a vital subject that demonstrates the critical link between meteorologists and engineers, as well as the general public, with regard to the impacts and risks in the weather and water enterprise. This session is expected to focus on new and emerging methods for probabilistic and PMP analyses and the estimation of hydrometeorological extremes. Subjects within this topic can include frequency analyses, uncertainty quantification, analysis of extreme storm events, case studies addressing climate and land-use changes, and communication of flood risk to the public.
The precipitation session focuses on precipitation observation, modeling, estimation, and applications of in situ and remotely sensed precipitation products. Topics include, but are not limited to, (1) precipitation processes and modeling, (2) advances in remote sensing of precipitation from satellite and radar platforms, (3) recent development pertaining to fusion and downscaling of precipitation products, (4) assimilation of precipitation and precipitation-related variables in NWP models, and (5) impacts of improving precipitation estimates on hydrologic and land surface modeling. Please contact the session organizers, Emad Habib (habib@louisiana.edu) and Yu Zhang (yu.zhang@uta.edu) for additional information.
Severe weather with heavy precipitation could bring unexpected hydrometeorological hazards, such as flash floods and landslides/mudslides, which might lead to serious social, economic, and political problems. Severe precipitation, flash floods, or landslides might become disasters that could cause significant injuries, deaths, infrastructure damage, transportation paralysis, and/or many other problems. Therefore, it is essentially important to accurately monitor and estimate the heavy precipitation so that the occurrence and intensity of associated hydrometeorological hazards can be well measured and forecasted. Currently the most powerful technique to monitor/research the severe weather is the remote sensing technique (e.g., radar, satellite). The relevant research fields progress rapidly with the aims of providing accurate and high-resolution precipitation estimation, accurate flash flood forecasting, understanding of causation and geophysical process of these natural hazards. This session invites high quality, original research contributions from radar meteorology, satellite meteorology, flash flood forecasting, hazards monitoring, and related fields that research hydrometeorological hazards.
Monday Poster Viewing
These posters highlight some of the major weather events that occurred Globally and in the USA since the last annual AMS meeting.
Data Assimilation: Advances in Methodologies
6:00 PM-8:00 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Exhibits Opening and Reception
Location: Exhibit Hall 4 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
8:00 PM-10:00 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Ryan Symposium Reception
Location: The Reverbery at the Hilton (Austin, Texas)
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.
8:00 PM-10:30 PM: Monday, 8 January 2018
Fourth Annual Speed Networking Event for Students and Early Career Professionals
Location: Ballroom A (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
The Speed Networking Event allows students and early professionals to network with mentors via ‘speed networking’, similar to ‘speed dating’, where the mentors (meteorology professionals) roam between tables at set intervals introducing the students and early professionals to a wide array of professions in the field of meteorology. The speed networking will be followed by a social with light hors d'oeuvres, proving a great time for open networking. This allows the students and the mentors of their selected discipline to have extended conversations after their speed-mentoring introductions.For additional information, please contact Elizabeth Nolan elizabeth.nolan@noaa.gov
Tuesday, 9 January 2018
7:00 AM-8:15 AM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
The Weather Research and Forecasting Act of 2017 authorizes NOAA’s Subseasonal and Seasonal (S2S) forecast responsibilities. Congress’s policy is “that it is in the public interest to maintain an active Federal involvement in providing and improving the use of weather and climate information...” Congress has asked NOAA, in consultation with partners and stakeholders, to provide it with a report that includes: (i) an analysis of how NOAA’s S2S forecasts are used for public planning and preparedness; (ii) NOAA’s plans for the continued improvement of an S2S forecasting capability, including products to meet the needs described in number ‘i’; and (iii) an identification of the needed research, monitoring, observing and forecasting requirements for number ‘ii’. This AMS Town Hall will review the contents of Section 201 of ‘The Weather Act’, describe what has been done through the present, and seek input from the community through active and lively dialogue.
7:30 AM-6:00 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
AMS Information Desk
Location: Austin, Texas
Member Services Desk
Location: Atrium Lobby (Austin, Texas)
Registration
Location: Atrium Lobby (Austin, Texas)
Speaker Ready Room
Location: Room 11AB (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
8:00 AM-5:30 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Local Chapter Posters
Location: Exhibit Hall 3 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
AMS local chapters will display posters related to their chapter history and activities at the 98th Annual Meeting. The posters will highlight all the interesting and exciting activities that AMS local chapters are involved in.
8:30 AM-9:00 AM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Overview of Peter Webster's contributions.
8:30 AM-9:30 AM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
8:30 AM-9:45 AM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
8:30 AM-10:00 AM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
This session is focused on progress being made in moving forward with research that enables better space weather forecasts and improves communication of these results.
Understanding the interactions between aerosol particles and deep convective clouds is challenging for a number of reasons. Aerosol particles influence the microphysical properties, latent heat release, and ultimately the dynamics of these storms. Characteristics of the anvils, hydrometeors, surface precipitation, and cold pools can be significantly altered as a result. Deep convective clouds are in turn important for removing and redistributing aerosol particles in the atmosphere. For this session, we seek presentations on interactions between aerosols and all types of isolated and organized deep convection in the tropics and midlatitudes, including mesoscale convective systems and hurricanes. Papers focusing on aspects of aerosol–deep convection interactions such as precipitation, cloud microphysical and radiative properties, cold pools, and storm dynamics are welcomed. Papers on deep convective transport of aerosols and dust are also strongly encouraged.
As a joint session between the SIXTH SYMPOSIUM ON BUILDING A WEATHER-READY NATION: ENHANCING OUR NATION and the SIXTH SYMPOSIUM ON THE WEATHER, WATER, AND CLIMATE ENTERPRISE, this session would explore futuristic visions of how weather, water, and climate predictive services will evolve and serve America over the next several decades. We would like to invite a broad and diverse combination of thinkers and practitioners from across the public, private, and academic sectors and potentially outside of traditional AMS disciplines that will describe how weather, water, and climate forecasts and forecasters will transform their information into services to make America stronger. The focus would be on service and the associated science and technologies that enable delivery of information to support decision making rather than on the core science and technology behind creating the forecast. Perspectives will take into consideration larger trends in science, technology, economics, information sharing, sector roles in the enterprise, political institutions, and social behavior. We envision this would be a single session with four to five 15 minute presentations. The organizers would be members of the Office of Organizational Excellence in the National Weather Service, a staff office at the intersection of strategy and enterprise engagement, monitoring trends and ensuring the NWS is pointed in the right direction to deliver the very best services to the Nation. Based on the level of interest of previous Emerging Technologies town halls, we anticipate that this session would also have a high level of interest and would appeal to a wide breadth of conference participants.
This session will explore the interactions among meteorology and vectorborne disease ecology and epidemiology. Presentations addressing the nexus of physical, social, and biological factors that influence vectorborne disease transmission are encouraged, as are those that emphasize best practices in transitioning basic research into early warning frameworks to support vector control and public health.
We all crave to be understood and heard. But often in the science world, there is a gap between how we are communicating science and how the information is then received by its intended audience. Understanding how to effectively "mind the gap" between discussing science and the needs of users and decision makers is key to that rich and clear transmission of critical science information. If we know the needs our audience and have the tools to use to reach them, then we can develop effective science communication and hopefully begin to develop that two-way dialogue that can grow into extended engagement. Sessions under this topic could address how to understand the "why" of your audience, what are the best communication practices for reaching your audience, and how you effectively use storytelling and visualization to create connection.
Abstracts related to statistical processes for wind speed and power prediction.
Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs), Part I
Severe weather with heavy precipitation could bring unexpected hydrometeorological hazards, such as flash floods and landslides/mudslides, which might lead to serious social, economic, and political problems. Severe precipitation, flash floods, or landslides might become disasters that could cause significant injuries, deaths, infrastructure damage, transportation paralysis, and/or many other problems. Therefore, it is essentially important to accurately monitor and estimate the heavy precipitation so that the occurrence and intensity of associated hydrometeorological hazards can be well measured and forecasted. Currently the most powerful technique to monitor/research the severe weather is the remote sensing technique (e.g., radar, satellite). The relevant research fields progress rapidly with the aims of providing accurate and high-resolution precipitation estimation, accurate flash flood forecasting, understanding of causation and geophysical process of these natural hazards. This session invites high quality, original research contributions from radar meteorology, satellite meteorology, flash flood forecasting, hazards monitoring, and related fields that research hydrometeorological hazards.
This session welcomes studies funded by, but not limited to, NASA’s Atmospheric Composition Modeling and Analysis Program (ACMAP) and Aura Science Team (AST). In particular, studies related to global and regional modeling and/or satellite data analysis in the areas of atmospheric chemistry, air quality, and the oxidation efficiency in the troposphere; stratospheric chemistry and ozone depletion; and interactions between atmospheric chemistry, weather, and the climate are welcome. Studies of long-term trends in atmospheric composition are also of interest, where the connection between the cause and effect is elucidated using models. The session is also interested in studies that integrate observations from NASA instruments with models to address attribution and predictions. Use of satellite and suborbital datasets and ground-based measurements are encouraged for modeling constraints and verification where applicable.
This session explores crowdsourcing and related technologies for collecting and communicating climate, weather, and hydrological data sets.
The NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission has embarked on a unique global transect of tropospheric chemistry, measuring a full suite of reactive gases and aerosols along curtains through the remote Pacific and Atlantic Ocean basins. These ocean basins comprise most of the photochemical activity of the troposphere, controlling the global abundances of many species such as methane and tropospheric ozone. By the time of this session, three of the four-season deployments will be completed and the datasets from the first two deployments will be publicly available. We invite presentations using ATom data, including in combination with other data, that examine the global scope of tropospheric gases and aerosols, particularly considering the evidence for and impacts of distant pollution sources on the oceanic atmosphere.
This session explores the needs and uses of weather and road weather observations and how these observations can improve communication to the commuting or traveling public, as well as those who operate and maintain the transportation system.
Teaching using Python and also tools designed to analyize and diagnose complex datasets
Land–atmosphere interactions play a key role in the climate system. The land's role in the weather and climate, its impact on atmospheric means, variability, and feedbacks across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales, ranging from hours to centuries, for past, present, and future climates has been the subject of much recent exploratory research. The meteorological, hydrological, biophysical, biogeochemical, ecosystem and boundary layer processes that underlie the connections between weather/climate and soil moisture, soil temperature, vegetation, snow, and frozen soil, however, are not yet fully understood. The scarcity of relevant observations, the complexity of the underlying processes and feedbacks, and the wide range of scales involved make the necessary investigations challenging. This session focuses on (1) interfaces between weather, climate, ecosystems, and the land branches of the energy, water, and carbon cycles and the impact of land processes on climate variability and change as well as on extreme events (such as droughts and flooding); (2) dynamic, physical, and biogeochemical mechanisms and feedbacks by which the land surface (e.g., soil moisture and temperature, albedo, snow, frozen soil, vegetation) influences surface water and energy balances, atmospheric processes, and climate; (3) short and long-term predictability associated with land–atmosphere–ocean interaction and land initialization (such as soil moisture, soil temperature, snow, etc.); (4) impacts of land-cover and land-use change on climate; (5) land–atmosphere interactions in the context of climate variability and change, and (6) application and analyses of local and large-scale field data and observational networks (such as FLUXNET) and satellite observations for land–atmosphere studies. We welcome papers addressing any of these topics.
N/A
9:00 AM-10:00 AM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Air–sea interactions and tropical cyclones.
The importance of public, private, and academic collaborations in the weather enterprise to address new challenges or address old challenges in new ways.
9:00 AM-11:00 AM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Spouse's Coffee
Location: 602 (Hilton) (Austin, Texas)
9:00 AM-6:00 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Exhibit Hall
Location: Exhibit Hall 4 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
9:30 AM-10:00 AM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
9:45 AM-10:00 AM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
10:00 AM-10:30 AM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Meet President Roger M. Wakimoto
Location: Exhibit Hall 4 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
Check back soon for more information.
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
In exoscale computing several challenges are likely to present themselves. These include coping with runtime failures and taking advantage of massive parallelism. This session will provide some illumination on techniques and tactics to overcome these and other challenges.
10:30 AM-12:00 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
The Ninth Conference on Weather, Climate, Water, and the New Energy Economy and the Eighth Conference on the Transition of Research to Operations present a Themed Joint Session on the topic of communication within the energy sector. One of the challenges of our diverse community is ensuring that necessary information is being communicated to the right people in the right ways. At the forefront of all of our communication efforts should be the clear and concise communication of risk, particularly with regards to the stability and reliability of the electric grid. In this session, a diverse array of panelists from the weather, climate, and energy communities will discuss communications challenges they face and methods for improving communication across the energy sector.
Tropical convection and waves.
Climate and environmental conditions in the polar regions are undergoing drastic changes. Recent in situ and space-borne measurements revealed frequent Arctic haze formation from local sources (e.g., shipping, wild fires, industrial activities, and residential combustion) or transported from mid-latitude regions, which calls for a quantitative assessment of impacts of anthropogenic aerosols on the Arctic atmosphere and cryosphere. Meanwhile, natural aerosols from marine biosphere, biomass smoke, and volcano are also closely linked to the polar cloud and climate changes. This session solicits papers addressing observations and modeling of sources and transport of aerosols in the high latitudes, aerosol effects on the mixed phase and ice clouds, aerosol snow-albedo effects, cloud–radiation–sea ice interactions, the role of aerosols in the sea ice and land ice melting, etc.
This session seeks projects that demonstrate innovative and transformative strategies and best practices to solve the lack of inclusion of diverse groups, including minority students in the atmospheric sciences. It seeks methodologies for attracting, recruiting, and retaining diverse ethnicities and projects that demonstrate practices that increase participation, access, awareness, and interest of underrepresented minorities.
We solicit papers on key science challenges, including prediction of solar flares, determining the geoeffectiveness of space weather storms, and understanding and predicting ionospheric variability.
Follow-on Discussion from InterMET Asia, Cosponsored by InterMET Asia
High-impact hydrometeorological events produce the most destructive and costly outcomes of any weather-driven phenomena worldwide. Furthermore, despite significant progress over the last several decades, forecasting and warning for these events still lacks the precision that could minimize loss of property and life, especially in developing nations. However, new observational platforms (in situ, remote) and data-collection methods are improving our ability to assess ongoing events as well as forecast and distinguish those that could be destructive from those that probably will not be. Excessive precipitation or runoff associated with tropical cyclones/convection, land-based convection, atmospheric rivers, ENSO, wintertime snowmelt, rain-on-snow, etc. results in both flash-flooding and large-river system floods whose characteristics often depend on local soils, vegetation/agriculture, and topography. Conversely, severe droughts create deleterious impacts on crop/food production and the water supply. In this session, papers are invited that contribute to our ability to improve real-time/operational forecasts and warnings for these kinds of extremes, especially observational and modeling approaches that may vary depending upon differing societal contexts. In addition, papers that address promising and innovative methods of assessing and modeling the statistics of observed hydrometeorological extremes as applied to real-time/operational forecasting/warning systems are encouraged. Papers that document forecast system performance vis-a-vis the effect of including new or additional observations are also encouraged, as well as new or innovative approaches to communicating vital "extremes" information to stakeholders.
Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs)—Part II
This session welcomes studies funded by, but not limited to, NASA’s Atmospheric Composition Modeling and Analysis Program (ACMAP) and Aura Science Team (AST). In particular, studies related to global and regional modeling and/or satellite data analysis in the areas of atmospheric chemistry, air quality, and the oxidation efficiency in the troposphere, stratospheric chemistry, and ozone depletion, and interactions between atmospheric chemistry, weather, and the climate are welcome. Studies of long-term trends in atmospheric composition are also of interest, where the connection between cause and effect is elucidated using models. The session is also interested in studies that integrate observations from NASA instruments with models to address attribution and predictions. Use of satellite and suborbital datasets and ground-based measurements are encouraged for modeling constraints and verification where applicable.
Presentations in this session will explore general software engineering best practices and technologies behind successful cyberinfrastructure implementations.
Risks and opportunities with climate change is often referred to as the world’s biggest sustainability challenge. As the understanding of these risks and opportunities grow, access, use, communication, and decision-making based on meaningful climate and environmental information continues to be a critical component to advance decision-making by sector and industries, as well as broad investments in adaptation and resilience. To improve capacity building and spur catalytic activities in climate services, providers of the information have taken initiative to emphasize user-driven climate analysis through case studies, engagement discussions with business and industry leaders, cataloging and categorizing users, uses, and applications of climate data to assess risk, and investing in resilience in the face of climate variability. Solution providers are also demonstrating how industry in select sectors of the economy are using environmental information for analysis, planning, decision-making, investments, etc. This session invites providers of data, solution providers, and customers to discuss users and uses of environmental data, needs and requirements, assessment of climate impacts, and examples of innovative climate solutions to foster advancement in adaptation and resilience.
The NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission has embarked on a unique global transect of tropospheric chemistry, measuring a full suite of reactive gases and aerosols along curtains through the remote Pacific and Atlantic Ocean basins. These ocean basins comprise most of the photochemical activity of the troposphere, controlling the global abundances of many species such as methane and tropospheric ozone. By the time this sessions begins, three of the four-season deployments will be completed and the datasets from the first two deployments will be publicly available. We invite presentations using ATom data, including in combination with other data, that examine the global scope of tropospheric gases and aerosols, particularly considering the evidence for and impacts of distant pollution sources on the oceanic atmosphere.
This session explores the needs and uses of weather and road weather observations and how these observations can improve communication to the commuting or traveling public, as well as those who operate and maintain the transportation system.
N/A
Land–atmosphere interactions play a key role in the climate system. The land's role in the weather and climate, its impact on atmospheric means, variability, and feedbacks across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales, ranging from hours to centuries, for past, present, and future climates has been the subject of much recent exploratory research. The meteorological, hydrological, biophysical, biogeochemical, ecosystem, and boundary layer processes that underlie the connections between weather/climate and soil moisture, soil temperature, vegetation, snow, and frozen soil, however, are not yet fully understood. The scarcity of relevant observations, the complexity of the underlying processes and feedbacks, and the wide range of scales involved make the necessary investigations challenging. This session focuses on (1) interfaces between weather, climate, ecosystems, and the land branches of the energy, water, and carbon cycles and the impact of land processes on climate variability and change as well as on extreme events (such as droughts and flooding); (2) dynamic, physical, and biogeochemical mechanisms and feedbacks by which the land surface (e.g., soil moisture and temperature, albedo, snow, frozen soil, vegetation) influences surface water and energy balances, atmospheric processes, and climate; (3) short and long-term predictability associated with land–atmosphere–ocean interaction and land initialization (such as soil moisture, soil temperature, snow, etc.); (4) impacts of land-cover and land-use change on climate; (5) land–atmosphere interactions in the context of climate variability and change, and (6) application and analyses of local- and large-scale field data and observational networks (such as FLUXNET) and satellite observations for land–atmosphere studies. We welcome papers addressing any of these topics. Please contact the session organizers, Yongkang Xue (yxue@geog.ucla.edu), Randy Koster (randal.koster@gsfc.nasa.gov), Michael Ek, (michael.ek@noaa.gov), Joseph A. Santanello (joseph.a.santanello@nasa.gov), and Steven Quiring (quiring.10@osu.edu) for additional information.
Exposures to various types of air pollutants, including particulates and aeroallergens, may vary significantly across time and space in both indoor and outdoor environments. Presentations addressing the interactions between human health, meteorology, and time−activity patterns across various time spans are encouraged, as well as those emphasizing best practices and/or the use of technological advancements for early warning systems and/or citizen science, and improved prediction for communication to the public.
The intense horizontal transports of water vapor by atmospheric rivers (ARs) are fundamental to the global cycles of energy and water, and also determine regional patterns of weather, water, and climate variability and extremes. Research into atmospheric rivers now includes field experiments, model simulations and forecasts, diagnostic analyses, and climate-change projections. The science of atmospheric river benefits and impacts has begun to engender new applications in support of operations and decision support for communicating risks for hazards such as flooding and challenges such as water resources management. This session encourages contributions that span topics from atmospheric river science to AR-related applications, such as the communication of risk and other decision support services.
N/A
10:45 AM-12:00 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Using Python to model or simulate geophysical processes or as a integration environment
12:00 PM-1:30 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Women in Atmospheric Sciences Luncheon
Location: Ballroom A (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
The 2018 Women in the Atmospheric Sciences Luncheon will focus on the importance of inclusion and diversity in atmospheric and computational science and related fields. The Luncheon will feature four panelists, including Dr. Valerie Taylor from Argonne National Laboratory, Dr. Patty Lopez from Intel Corporation, Ms. Tracy Hansen from NOAA’s Global Systems Division, and Ms. Jessica Mink from Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. All are encouraged to attend this luncheon.
12:15 PM-1:15 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
The National Science Foundation’s EarthCube program is a community-driven activity aimed at transforming the conduct of geosciences research by creating a well-connected cyberinfrastructure for sharing and integrating data and knowledge across all geoscience disciplines in an open, transparent, and inclusive manner and to accelerate our ability to understand and predict the Earth system. EarthCube is now transitioning into an implementation phase. In the first phase of implementing the EarthCube architecture, the project leadership has identified the following architectural components as the top three priorities, focused on technologies, interfaces and interoperability elements that will address: a) Resource Discovery; b) Resource Registry; and c) Resource Distribution and Access. We will present the progress of EarthCube on a number of fronts and engage geoscientists and data scientists in the future steps toward the development of EarthCube. The meeting will provide an opportunity for the AMS community to provide input to the EarthCube project.
Infrastructure and the built environment, a crucial sector of the Nation’s economy, is designed, engineered and constructed using weather, climate, and environmental information. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) has been serving this sector for many years. NCEI engages with this sector to better understand the implications of climate for infrastructure, how different establishments are building resilience and adaptation in planning, how environmental data provides value, and general challenges and opportunities for the infrastructure sector. This Town Hall dialogue will provide an opportunity for further interaction with sector experts along with scientific experts to discuss current techniques, data sets and challenges, and identify requirements to support the sector. The intent is to foster and reinforce the lines of communication and to ensure NCEI is providing information that can lead to improved infrastructure resilience
NASA’s Earth Science Division (ESD) leadership team will present an update of status and plans, with significant time for discussion with the audience, which is expected to comprise current and potential investigators in ESD’s programs and/or those of its partner agencies, as well as current and potential users of its data and models. Highlighted items include status of operating and future satellite missions; implementation of Venture Class activities; evolution of and plans for the research, applied sciences, and technology elements; contribution to interagency and international Earth observation and global change programs, and response to and preparation for community-based guiding documents. Panelists: Michael H. Freilich, Sandra Cauffman; Jack Kaye; Lawrence Friedl ,Patricia Jacobberger-Jellison, Eric Ianson, and Robert Bauer
Numerical models in the NCEP Production Suite (NPS) form the foundation of all forecasting for the National Weather Service (NWS). NWS needs to remain at the cutting-edge and continuously transition science from the research community to operations. A key element in modernizing the NPS is external review by the UCAR Community Advisory Committee for NCEP (UCACN) Model Advisory Committee (UMAC) and the NOAA Unified Modeling Task Force / Committee. Key recommendations were simplification and better governance of NPS, and a closer working relationship between NWS and the research community. A second key element is the Next Generation Global Prediction System project, where NWS has adopted a more project-oriented approach to improving NPS. This project is now addressing regional mesoscale modeling in the NPS. This town hall is designed to communicate progress on model development and the response to UMAC recommendations, and to provide a forum for feedback from our customers.
Even as weather forecasts become more accurate and extend to greater time horizons, the societal impacts of weather hazards—cycles of flood and drought, winter storms and hurricanes, tornadoes, and much more—continue to mount. Experience shows that numerous social and behavioral factors (e.g., how individuals are wired to think, how humans function in groups) can shape how people, communities, and nations prepare for, observe, predict, respond to, and are affected by weather hazards. Moreover, these factors do not remain constant; they can change rapidly in response to ongoing technological, demographic, and cultural changes in society. These challenges prompted NOAA and DoT/FHWA to request that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine undertake a study that offers guidance on how the weather enterprise can most effectively support and implement critically-needed social and behavioral science research. The outcomes of that study will be presented and discussed in this Town Hall session.
Evidence-based decision-making depends on: 1) the availability of evidence such as that provided by scientific research and observations, 2) a well-educated public that can access and use evidence, 3) a media that accurately and effectively informs the public, and 4) a policy process that encourages and rewards good-faith efforts to advance societal interests.The discussion will feature perspectives on public engagement from leaders in policy engagement and public communication. Please come share your insights and questions.
NOAA's Chief Data Officer and Big Data Project (BDP) Director, Dr. Ed Kearns, convenes experts from across the commercial data industry and research sector to discuss how NOAA's satellite resources may be made available to a wider community through cloud-based platforms that focuses on maximizing data usability and accessibility. Panelists include BDP Collaborators, researchers, and commercial industry representatives who will discuss their experiences with GOES-16 and other satellite data on their cloud platforms, how these platforms can be used to support the development and distribution of future satellite products, and their view of the future for the cloud to ensure the maximum extraction of value for NOAA's data users. Q&A will seek user feedback on cloud data access, the NOAA BDP activity, and the suitability of the cloud for development and distribution of new information products. A limited number of boxed lunches will be provided by Riverside Technology and AER.
12:50 PM-1:30 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Daily Weather Briefings
Location: Room 17A (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
These 30-minute briefings will provide analyses and forecasts of major national weather features and impacts, with focus on central Texas weather affecting the meeting.
1:15 PM-2:30 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
1:30 PM-2:30 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Predictability and prediction.
N/A
Today, many predict coastal zone weather including alerts to potential flooding. This session will offer papers that predict the occurrences and impacts of weather via next-generation, science-based flood forecasting and robust decision support services to communicate the information. The ultimate goal is to evolve water modeling, and forecasting, to motivate improved water information research and development. Important research questions include what kinds of (and in which formats) information are needed by community, state, and regional decision-makers. This session will reveal the required comprehensive observational and numerical modeling and communication strategies necessary for timely, detailed, and accurate warnings of where, when, and how much flooding will occur in coastal watersheds to forewarn emergency managers and public authorities and the public.
Tools in Python used to analyze and display geospatial data
N/A
1:30 PM-2:45 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Discipline-based research in atmospheric science education is a fairly new field. To encourage discussion and support growth in this area, we welcome preliminary research reports with a 7-minute presentation/7-minute discussion format where audience feedback can be solicited, as well as more polished education findings using the traditional 11-minute talk/3-minute question format.
1:30 PM-3:00 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
1:30 PM-3:30 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
This session will look at some of the many new facilities that are coming into existence as well as being proposed. Existing facilities are being upgraded or are developing new techniques. The focus of these two sessions will be on the way these new observational capabilities support the space weather enterprise.
This session welcomes studies funded by, but not limited to, NASA’s Atmospheric Composition Modeling and Analysis Program (ACMAP) and Aura Science Team (AST). In particular, studies related to global and regional modeling and/or satellite data analysis in the area of atmospheric chemistry, air quality, and the oxidation efficiency in the troposphere; stratospheric chemistry and ozone depletion; and interactions between atmospheric chemistry, weather, and the climate are welcome. Studies of long-term trends in atmospheric composition are also of interest, where the connection between cause and effect is elucidated using models. The session is also interested in studies that integrate observations from NASA instruments with models to address attribution and predictions. Use of satellite and suborbital datasets and ground-based measurements are encouraged for modeling constraints and verification where applicable.
The NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission has embarked on a unique global transect of tropospheric chemistry, measuring a full suite of reactive gases and aerosols along curtains through the remote Pacific and Atlantic Ocean basins. These ocean basins comprise most of the photochemical activity of the troposphere, controlling the global abundances of many species such as methane and tropospheric ozone. By the time this session begins, three of the four-season deployments will be completed and the datasets from the first two deployments will be publicly available. We invite presentations using ATom data, including in combination with other data, that examine the global scope of tropospheric gases and aerosols, particularly considering the evidence for and impacts of distant pollution sources on the oceanic atmosphere.
1:30 PM-3:45 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Improving the communication of forecast uncertainty remains a core priority for the weather enterprise as a whole (NAS 2006) and NOAA/NWS in particular (NOAA 2012). For the last 3 years, researchers working in NOAA's Hazardous Weather Testbed and Hydrometeorological Testbed have experimented with a variety of probabilistic tools, in time scales ranging from days to minutes, and explored the ways those tools can be used for forecasting and communication by NWS forecasters, emergency managers, and broadcast meteorologists. This session will report on key findings from these projects, documenting current trajectories of development and outstanding conceptual and technical challenges.
3
MCSs
Location: Room 6A (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
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.
Data Assimilation: Advances in Methodologies—Part I
High-impact hydrometeorological events produce the most destructive and costly outcomes of any weather-driven phenomena worldwide. Furthermore, despite significant progress over the last several decades, forecasting and warning for these events still lacks the precision that could minimize loss of property and life, especially in developing nations. However, new observational platforms (in situ, remote) and data-collection methods are improving our ability to assess ongoing events as well as forecast and distinguish those that could be destructive from those that probably will not be. Excessive precipitation or runoff associated with tropical cyclones/convection, land-based convection, atmospheric rivers, ENSO, wintertime snowmelt, rain-on-snow, etc. results in both flash-flooding and large-river system floods whose characteristics often depend on local soils, vegetation/agriculture, and topography. Conversely, severe droughts create deleterious impacts on crop/food production and the water supply. In this session, papers are invited that contribute to our ability to improve real-time/operational forecasts and warnings for these kinds of extremes, especially observational and modeling approaches that may vary depending upon differing societal contexts. In addition, papers that address promising and innovative methods of assessing and modeling the statistics of observed hydrometeorological extremes as applied to real-time/operational forecasting/warning systems are encouraged. Papers that document forecast system performance vis-a-vis the effect of including new or additional observations are also encouraged, as well as new or innovative approaches to communicating vital "extremes" information to stakeholders.
For this session, we welcome contributions from research fields such as scientific visualization, information visualization, or visual analytics that are applicable to data sets from climatology, meteorology, or related disciplines.
N/A
Land–atmosphere interactions play a key role in the climate system. The land's role in the weather and climate, its impact on atmospheric means, variability, and feedbacks across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales, ranging from hours to centuries, for past, present, and future climates has been the subject of much recent exploratory research. The meteorological, hydrological, biophysical, biogeochemical, ecosystem, and boundary layer processes that underlie the connections between weather/climate and soil moisture, soil temperature, vegetation, snow, and frozen soil, however, are not yet fully understood. The scarcity of relevant observations, the complexity of the underlying processes and feedbacks, and the wide range of scales involved make the necessary investigations challenging. This session focuses on (1) interfaces between weather, climate, ecosystems, and the land branches of the energy, water, and carbon cycles and the impact of land processes on climate variability and change as well as on extreme events (such as droughts and flooding); (2) dynamic, physical, and biogeochemical mechanisms and feedbacks by which the land surface (e.g., soil moisture and temperature, albedo, snow, frozen soil, vegetation) influences surface water and energy balances, atmospheric processes, and climate; (3) short- and long-term predictability associated with land–atmosphere–ocean interaction and land initialization (such as soil moisture, soil temperature, snow, etc.); (4) impacts of land-cover and land-use change on climate; (5) land–atmosphere interactions in the context of climate variability and change, and (6) application and analyses of local- and large-scale field data and observational networks (such as FLUXNET) and satellite observations for land–atmosphere studies. We welcome papers addressing any of these topics. Please contact the session organizers, Yongkang Xue (yxue@geog.ucla.edu), Randy Koster (randal.koster@gsfc.nasa.gov), Michael Ek, (michael.ek@noaa.gov), Joseph A. Santanello (joseph.a.santanello@nasa.gov), and Steven Quiring (quiring.10@osu.edu) for additional information.
2:00 PM-3:00 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
2:00 PM-3:45 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
2:30 PM-3:30 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Monsoons.
2:30 PM-3:45 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
This panel is designed to untangle the web of interests and engagements between the public and private sectors for developing and using environmental-based forecasting to reduce public health risks and enhance health protection. The first step is in disaggregating the private sector so that engagements are more aligned with interests, incentives, and business models for ecological forecasting aimed at health protection. What are the differing interests of large corporations and small start-ups in this field? Who engages whom and at what stage? What are the incentives and business models?
2:45 PM-3:45 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
We all work with various configurations of editors, dependencies, and environments. During this panel session, four experienced users will share their configurations and be available for questions and discussions.
Please join us for an open discussion about the Symposium on Education. Everyone is welcome to reflect on this year's meeting and help shape and plan future meetings.
3:00 PM-3:30 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
17AI poster presenters are invited to briefly introduce their work and answer a few questions as a preview of the late Tuesday afternoon 17AI poster session.
3:00 PM-3:45 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
3:30 PM-3:45 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Concluding remarks from Peter Webster.
3:45 PM-5:00 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
3:45 PM-5:30 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Formal Poster Viewing with Coffee Break
Location: Exhibit Hall 3 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
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.
Air–sea interactions and tropical cyclones posters.
Presentation of all posters part of the Conference on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and Its Applications to the Environmental Sciences.
Posters: 19th Symposium on Meteorological Observation and Instrumentation (19SMOI)
Posters Focusing on Societal Applications: Policy, Research, and Practice.
Aerosol–Cloud–Climate Interactions Posters
A number of regional and national real-time flood forecasting systems are emerging for a variety of different flood-related applications. These new systems are taking advantage of new national hydrologic data standards, new advances in supercomputing availability and improvements in model parameterizations and meteorological forcing datasets. This session encourages contributions from all sectors of the AMS enterprise (academic, government, and the private sector) who have built and deployed such systems. Additionally, contributions are welcome from researchers who have developed novel methodologies to sense and model flood generation dynamics at a variety of time and space scales. We are also seeking abstracts that focus on hydrological modeling systems which require, and utilize high performance computing (HPC) resources to improve the overall understanding and real-time prediction of hydrologic processes at all scales (land surface, aquifer, and stream/river flows) and their extremes (especially those with high impacts on society). Also In this session, interdisciplinary researchers, from meteorologists to engineers, are encouraged to demonstrate different methodologies and tools for better understanding the spatiotemporal characteristics of tropical cyclones (TCs) and improving risk-based analysis and real-time forecasts of the rainfall and/or storm surge associated with TCs. In addition, studies involving flood mitigation from the local- to regional-scale are invited given the increasing need for protection from such events. Research and application contributions from within the United States as well as internationally are also encouraged.
Posters following Tuesday's Sessions
Poster Submissions from All Topic Areas
Second general poster session
Tropical convection and waves posters.
Tuesday posters.
Land–atmosphere interactions play a key role in the climate system. The land's role in the weather and climate—its impact on atmospheric means, variability, and feedbacks across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales, ranging from hours to centuries, for past, present, and future climates—has been the subject of much recent exploratory research. The meteorological, hydrological, biophysical, biogeochemical, ecosystem and boundary layer processes that underlie the connections between weather/climate and soil moisture, soil temperature, vegetation, snow, and frozen soil, however, are not yet fully understood. The scarcity of relevant observations, the complexity of the underlying processes and feedbacks, and the wide range of scales involved make the necessary investigations challenging. This session focuses on (1) interfaces between weather, climate, ecosystems, and the land branches of the energy, water, and carbon cycles and the impact of land processes on climate variability and change as well as on extreme events (such as droughts and flooding); (2) dynamic, physical, and biogeochemical mechanisms and feedbacks by which the land surface (e.g., soil moisture and temperature, albedo, snow, frozen soil, vegetation) influences surface water and energy balances, atmospheric processes, and climate; (3) short- and long-term predictability associated with land–atmosphere–ocean interaction and land initialization (such as soil moisture, soil temperature, snow, etc.); (4) impacts of land-cover and land-use change on climate; (5) land–atmosphere interactions in the context of climate variability and change, and (6) application and analyses of local- and large-scale field data and observational networks (such as FLUXNET) and satellite observations for land–atmosphere studies. We welcome papers addressing any of these topics. Please contact the session organizers, Yongkang Xue (yxue@geog.ucla.edu), Randy Koster (randal.koster@gsfc.nasa.gov), Michael Ek (michael.ek@noaa.gov), Joseph A. Santanello (joseph.a.santanello@nasa.gov), and Steven Quiring (quiring.10@osu.edu) for additional information.
Predictability and prediction posters.
Monsoon posters.
Advances in the estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) and atmospheric evaporative demand (Eo) are made across a broad range of scales and techniques, from in situ observations to remote sensing and modeling. Specific topics for this session may include, but are not limited to, (1) estimating ET from various perspectives: remote sensing platforms, ground-based point observations and parameterizations, plant-based experimentation, and water budgets; (2) operational ET estimation; (3) land surface–atmosphere feedbacks; (4) future remote sensing missions and needs for ET; (5) Eo as an input to operational LSMs to derive ET and schedule crop irrigation, and as a metric of hydroclimatic trends and variability. New methods are emerging to more robustly partition total ET between evaporative and transpirative fluxes from both a modeling and a measurement perspective. We encourage papers with a focus on information conveyed by E and T, as well as ET. This year, recognizing that transpiration is regulated through vegetation hydrodynamics, we are particularly seeking submissions relating to both experimental and theoretical work linking plant hydrodynamics, ecology, hydrology, and meteorology. Understanding and simulating these hydraulic behaviors of vegetation and their outcomes, in terms of water and carbon flux, is key to improving land surface and hydrologic models. Advances in remote sensing of water content and new databases compiling extensive monitoring records of site- and plant-level water flux and hydraulic trait data are poised for incorporation into such models through an emerging body of vegetation hydrodynamics modeling frameworks.
High-impact hydrometeorological events produce the most destructive and costly outcomes of any weather-driven phenomena worldwide. Furthermore, despite significant progress over the last several decades, forecasting and warning for these events still lacks the precision that could minimize loss of property and life, especially in developing nations. However, new observational platforms (in situ, remote) and data-collection methods are improving our ability to assess ongoing events as well as forecast and distinguish those that could be destructive from those that probably will not be. Excessive precipitation or runoff associated with tropical cyclones/convection, land-based convection, atmospheric rivers, ENSO, wintertime snowmelt, rain-on-snow, etc. results in both flash-flooding and large-river system floods whose characteristics often depend on local soils, vegetation/agriculture, and topography. Conversely, severe droughts create deleterious impacts on crop/food production and the water supply. In this session, papers are invited that contribute to our ability to improve real-time/operational forecasts and warnings for these kinds of extremes, especially observational and modeling approaches that may vary depending upon differing societal contexts. In addition, papers that address promising and innovative methods of assessing and modeling the statistics of observed hydrometeorological extremes as applied to real-time/operational forecasting/warning systems are encouraged. Papers that document forecast system performance vis-a-vis the effect of including new or additional observations are also encouraged, as well as new or innovative approaches to communicating vital "extremes" information to stakeholders.
OSSEs, Observation Sensitivity and Impact Experiments
4:00 PM-5:00 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
AMA
Location: Exhibit Hall 4 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
5:30 PM-6:45 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
The weather value chain continues to be rapidly transformed by new commercial data sources; advances in cloud computing and machine learning; the emergence of private-sector weather modeling; and an insatiable desire for more granular forecasts at longer lead times. This panel will showcase key players in the weather value chain of the future, and discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by the convergence of accelerating technology innovation, alternative business models, and the release of the Decadal Survey and NOAA’s future architecture study. For additional information, please contact Dan Stillman (email: dan.stillman@harris.com). Harris will provide beverages and light snacks.
5:30 PM-7:00 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
The USAF Weather Systems Program Office (Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Weather Systems Branch) will present a systems roadmap for USAF weather capabilities and programs to interested industry, academia, and government research organizations, as part of general market research and awareness outreach. Addressed will be likely research and procurement opportunities of weather systems with meteorological in-situ and remote sensing, modeling and high-performance computing, large-scale processing and dissemination, and forecaster applications.
5:30 PM-8:00 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
During the first 9 months (Jan-Sept) of 2017, the U.S. experienced 15 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters. 2017 ties the record year of 2011 for the most (15) billion-dollar disasters for the year to date. The record number of billion-dollar disasters for a calendar year is 16 events set in 2011. The 2017 events include two floods, a freeze, seven severe storms, three tropical cyclones, a drought and wildfire. In 2017, we have seen the rare combination of high disaster frequency, disaster cost and diversity of weather and climate extreme events. We can't say yet that 2017 will eclipse 2005 in terms of total cost since we are still assessing the hurricane costs. However, 2017 is more historic than 2005 in terms of event frequency and diversity, aside from the comparative hurricane impacts.
5:30 PM-10:00 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
University Night Receptions
Location: Austin, Texas
6:30 PM-8:30 PM: Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Peter J. Webster Symposium Banquet
Location: Ballroom A (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
Wednesday, 10 January 2018
7:00 AM-8:15 AM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Decision makers are demanding more timely and reliable environmental predictions and information days to months in the future. Weather events that have significant consequences for society and the economy are of particular interest. It is incumbent on the weather and climate community to accelerate improvements to the building blocks that advance understanding and improve forecasts of these events, including observational networks, data assimilation systems and statistical/dynamical models. Emphasis is placed on the extent to which the ocean observing system is meeting the needs of the weather and climate community to develop and deliver improved data, products and knowledge required by decision makers. This Town Hall will discuss the ability of the current observing systems, data, and information needed to meet requirements for weather research and services; identify data gaps in observing capabilities; and approaches to integrated system of global ocean observations for addressing these new challenges.
7:30 AM-6:00 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
AMS Information Desk
Location: Austin, Texas
Member Services Desk
Location: Atrium Lobby (Austin, Texas)
Registration
Location: Atrium Lobby (Austin, Texas)
Speaker Ready Room
Location: Room 11AB (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
8:00 AM-5:30 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Local Chapter Posters
Location: Exhibit Hall 3 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
AMS local chapters will display posters related to their chapter history and activities at the 98th Annual Meeting. The posters will highlight all the interesting and exciting activities that AMS local chapters are involved in.
8:15 AM-10:00 AM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Important decisions in sectors ranging from food security and public health, emergency management, and national security rely on communicated forecast and uncertainty information globally and at time scales beyond traditional weather limits. National Earth System Prediction Capability (National ESPC) is a partnership of five federal agencies collaborating to address research and operational issues across time scales ranging from synoptic to decadal, especially improving the two-way connection between research and operational prediction. The partnership’s greatest focus is on the subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) time range for which both initial conditions and boundary forcings drive the state of the coupled air−ocean−land−ice environment. With the goal of improving assessments of S2S model prediction skill, prediction tools or technologies, and providing process-based feedback on model performance, this session is accepting papers describing verification and validation techniques and tools on the S2S time scale, for user needs with fundamental time scales extending across this time frame such as watershed prediction reliability, planting season precipitation, potential frost days, Arctic or Great Lakes ice breakup dates, ice extent, etc.
8:30 AM-10:00 AM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
N/A
This session will explore novel methods and observational approaches to understand, predict, and minimize health issues due to extreme heat.
We solicit papers on key science challenges, including prediction of solar flares, determining the geoeffectiveness of space weather storms, and understanding and predicting ionospheric variability.
This session comprises oral presentations on the status of National WeatherService AWIPS II development, implementation, and use.
Advances in the estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) and atmospheric evaporative demand (Eo) are made across a broad range of scales and techniques, from in situ observations to remote sensing and modeling. Specific topics for this session may include, but are not limited to, (1) estimating ET from various perspectives: remote sensing platforms, ground-based point observations and parameterizations, plant-based experimentation, and water budgets; (2) operational ET estimation; (3) land surface–atmosphere feedbacks; (4) future remote sensing missions and needs for ET; and (5) Eo as an input to operational LSMs to derive ET, schedule crop irrigation, and as a metric of hydroclimatic trends and variability. New methods are emerging to more robustly partition total ET between evaporative and transpirative fluxes from both a modeling and a measurement perspective. We encourage papers with a focus on information conveyed by E and T, as well as ET. This year, recognizing that transpiration is regulated through vegetation hydrodynamics, we are particularly seeking submissions relating to both experimental and theoretical work linking plant hydrodynamics, ecology, hydrology, and meteorology. Understanding and simulating these hydraulic behaviors of vegetation and their outcomes, in terms of water and carbon flux, is key to improving land surface and hydrologic models. Advances in remote sensing of water content and new databases compiling extensive monitoring records of site- and plant-level water flux and hydraulic trait data are poised for incorporation into such models through an emerging body of vegetation hydrodynamics modeling frameworks.
Observing Systems, Part I
N/A
A number of regional and national real-time flood forecasting systems are emerging for a variety of different flood-related applications. These new systems are taking advantage of new national hydrologic data standards, new advances in supercomputing availability and improvements in model parameterizations and meteorological forcing datasets. This session encourages contributions from all sectors of the AMS enterprise (academic, government and the private sector) who have built and deployed such systems. Additionally, contributions are welcome from researchers who have developed novel methodologies to sense and model flood generation dynamics at a variety of time and space scales. We are also seeking abstracts that focus on hydrological modeling systems which require, and utilize high performance computing (HPC) resources to improve the overall understanding and real-time prediction of hydrologic processes at all scales (land surface, aquifer, and stream/river flows) and their extremes (especially those with high impacts on society). Also In this session, interdisciplinary researchers, from meteorologists to engineers, are encouraged to demonstrate different methodologies and tools for better understanding the spatiotemporal characteristics of tropical cyclones (TCs) and improving risk-based analysis and real-time forecasts of the rainfall and/or storm surge associated with TCs. In addition, studies involving flood mitigation from the local to the regional scale are invited given the increasing need for protection from such events. Research and application contributions from within the United States as well as internationally are also encouraged.
9:00 AM-11:00 AM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Spouse's Coffee
Location: 602 (Hilton) (Austin, Texas)
9:00 AM-6:30 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Exhibit Hall
Location: Exhibit Hall 4 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
10:00 AM-10:30 AM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Meet President Roger M. Wakimoto
Location: Exhibit Hall 4 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
Check back soon for more information.
10:30 AM-11:00 AM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
10:30 AM-11:15 AM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
This session focuses on the many ways that space weather can impact communication.
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Topics related to resource assessment.
10:30 AM-12:00 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
N/A
AWIPS
How and to what extent the mineral dust aerosols can affect regional weather systems, global circulation patterns, and climate variability remains an open question. Answering the above question requires comprehensive understanding of the direct, indirect, and semi-direct radiative effects of dust in order to accurately model the energy budget of the atmosphere and surface. The dust-induced changes to the energy budget are manifest in cloud processes and the thermal structure of the atmosphere, and consequently the circulation. The dust-modified circulation, in turn, alters the dust transport by the mean and eddy portions of the flow. Examples of dust-modified circulations include, but are not limited to, the African easterly jet–African easterly wave system, the African monsoon, tropical cyclones, mesoscale convective complexes, and springtime cyclones over Southern Europe, Mongolia, and China.
This session aims to grow the international weather and communication network while continuing to build the global knowledge base by sharing the latest research on communicating about High Impact Weather. This session is supported by the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) 10-year High Impact Weather (HIWeather) research program, which aims to “promote cooperative international research to achieve a dramatic increase in resilience to high impact weather." Within this program, the Communication Task Team is building capacity in communicating high impact weather information. This is being achieved by bringing together a range of international experts including stakeholders from weather services, the emergency management sector, social scientists, and other key practitioners and researchers, and applying new knowledge and developments in relation to content, language, format, public awareness and dissemination. Determining best practice in executing effective risk or impact based warnings in an end to end warning system context and/or how to apply skill in communicating uncertainty so that communities may better understand and respond to the risk from hazards. While we are keen to include any research on weather and communication, we are particularly interested in hearing from presenters about research and practice in the following areas, which align with the goals of the HIWeather programme: the role of social media, particularly for contributing to impact models and warnings; the influence of trust, salience, beliefs and other factors on communication; communicating uncertainty (including probabilities) and the implications of uncertainty in forecasts and warnings; post-event case studies on communication of weather information and usage of advice in decision-making; best practice in communication training sessions being held with meteorologists on communication; research on communication of hazards including urban flooding, localized extreme wind, disruptive winter weather, wildfire, and urban heat waves and air pollution. The communication task group brings stakeholders together through coordinated activities such as workshops and conference sessions, writing white papers/special issues in journals, and sharing good practice; developing communication projects; conducting surveys; and initiating training courses. For more information, visit https://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/wwrp/new/high_impact_weather_project.html. Please join us if you are interested in finding out more about the WMO HIWeather project and if you can contribute to this global initiative.
Observing Systems, Part II
This session encompasses advances in soil moisture observations, assimilation of soil moisture observations, the development and application of land data assimilation systems (LDAS), and new DA methods. Advances in the development and application of land data assimilation systems (LDAS), which merge ground- or satellite-based observations with land surface estimates from coupled land–atmosphere or offline land surface models are discussed within this session. Both soil moisture and non-soil-moisture characteristics provide crucial input for land surface interactions, hydrologic processes, boundary layer meteorology, mobility models, and climate. The most cutting edge methods for soil moisture sensing at various spatial and temporal scales are continually changing. Data assimilation of soil moisture and inclusion of soil state characteristics in forecast modeling present significant challenges due to the variability in observations, observation types, uncertainty associated with observations, and observational coverage. Contributions may include studies that evaluate or refine land DA methods; studies that assess the impact of the assimilation on the quality of the LDAS products, and/or apply LDAS within operational or routinely run forecasting/hindcasting systems; contributions that incorporate LDAS into coupled land–atmosphere systems are particularly encouraged; studies that explore assimilation of novel and/or multiple observation types; improvements and advances in in situ and proximal observation techniques and data processing; novel methods and applications for soil strength and soil crust investigations; satellite remote sensing observation and data processing techniques; use of high performance computing (HPC) for modeling soil state characteristics, improving data assimilation techniques; verification and validation efforts for spatiotemporally varying data using distinctly different data sources; performance of land surface models as compared to in situ, proximal, and remotely sensed soil moisture; data assimilation techniques for soil moisture. Searchable terms: soil moisture, land surface interactions, spatial and temporal variability, in situ and remote sensing. All topic areas are invited to include a description of the importance of communication to enable collaboration and the sharing of scientific knowledge, the importance of collaboration in advancing subject matter knowledge, enabling field work, and model development with respect to improving the science.
A number of regional and national real-time flood forecasting systems are emerging for a variety of different flood-related applications. These new systems are taking advantage of new national hydrologic data standards, new advances in supercomputing availability and improvements in model parameterizations and meteorological forcing datasets. This session encourages contributions from all sectors of the AMS enterprise (academic, government and the private sector) who have built and deployed such systems. Additionally, contributions are welcome from researchers who have developed novel methodologies to sense and model flood generation dynamics at a variety of time and space scales. We are also seeking abstracts that focus on hydrological modeling systems which require, and utilize high performance computing (HPC) resources to improve the overall understanding and real-time prediction of hydrologic processes at all scales (land surface, aquifer, and stream/river flows) and their extremes (especially those with high impacts on society). Also in this session, interdisciplinary researchers, from meteorologists to engineers, are encouraged to demonstrate different methodologies and tools for better understanding the spatiotemporal characteristics of tropical cyclones (TCs) and improving risk-based analysis and real-time forecasts of the rainfall and/or storm surge associated with TCs. In addition, studies involving flood mitigation from the local to the regional scale are invited given the increasing need for protection from such events. Research and application contributions from within the United States as well as internationally are also encouraged.
This session will showcase research that is building knowledge of indoor thermal environments, including the association between outdoor and indoor conditions, indoor health and well-being, measurements and models of the indoor environment, and the use and impact of services such as energy assistance and weatherization programs. Presentations discussing best practices for collaboration and communicating findings and risks across disciplinary and sectoral boundaries are encouraged.
11:00 AM-12:00 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
11:15 AM-12:00 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
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?
12:00 PM-1:30 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
12:15 PM-1:15 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
9ENERGY Town Hall: Communicating Energy Information in the State of Texas: Best Practices and Lessons Learned
Location: Room 15 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
Speakers: Keith Seitter, AMS Executive Director, Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Adam Sobel, Columbia University. Research impact is increasingly important for scientists but it is also increasingly defined in new ways. The traditional tally of citations is just one measure of success; some researchers also seek wider exposure, through sharing on social media, writing books, and other means. With so many ways to share your work, what is the most effective (and responsible) approach? Join special guest AMS Executive Director Keith Seitter in this special session that will examine how to make your work impactful, while being mindful of copyright and permissions restrictions. It will also include tips from researchers who are successfully navigating this turbulent and increasingly important part of being a successful scientist.A limited number of fresh baked cookies will be provided. For additional information, please contact Mike Friedman mfriedman@ametsoc.org and Ken Heideman kheideman@ametsoc.org
The National Weather Service (NWS) is increasing its focus on providing Impact-based decision support services, as called for in the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017. To help ensure its analyses and short-term forecasts are meeting forecast service needs, NWS' new Analysis and Nowcast Branch of the Analyze, Forecast and Support Office is convening a Town Hall meeting with the broader weather community to discuss service requirements for the 0-18 hour forecasts. Preliminary input from NWS field forecasters (including NWS WFOs and RFCs, Regional Offices and National Centers) will be reviewed as a basis for broader community input and discussion of basic user and partner requirements.
The Ninth Conference on Weather, Climate, Water, and the New Energy Economy (9ENERGY) presents a Town Hall Meeting featuring the topic of communication in the utilities sector. Panelists will discuss the importance of proper communication within and external to Independent System Operators (ISOs) and utility companies. The session focuses on communication challenges faced by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), their market participants, and other utilities organizations in the State of Texas. Discussion points include the use of social media to communicate with utilities customers, communications internal to utility organizations, communication of unplanned outages, weather outlooks and associated planning, and communication successes and areas for improvement. The session format encourages an active panel discussion and audience participation.
NOAA generates tens of terabytes of data daily from various sources. While this data is publicly available, these data can be difficult to download and analyze. NOAA's Big Data Project (BDP) was created to explore the potential benefits of storing copies of some key observations and model outputs to the Cloud to allow users to access and analyze these data without requiring further data distribution. This approach could create new lines of business and economic growth while making data more accessible to users. This project combines NOAA's collection of high quality environmental data, the vast infrastructure and scalable computing capabilities of NOAA's industry partners and the innovative energy of the American economy. This town hall will feature the Big Data Project staff, collaborators and others who will share their successes and their lessons learned.
The presentaiton will be an opportunity for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Leadership to speak with staff and enterprise members about current important topics.
The report from the steering committee for the 2017-2027 National Academies’ decadal survey for Earth Science and Applications from Space (“ESAS 2017”) is scheduled for release by December 31, 2017. Like the inaugural survey, which published its final report in 2007, ESAS 2017 was requested by NASA, NOAA, and the USGS. The survey's overarching objective is to develop consensus recommendations from the environmental monitoring and Earth science and applications communities for an integrated and sustainable approach to the conduct of the U.S. government’s civilian space-based Earth-system science programs. Survey members will be present to discuss the report’s findings and recommendations and to engage the community in a discussion about report implementation. A PDF of the report is posted at www.nas.edu/esas2017 where details about the survey's organization may also be found.
The American Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and World War II are among the major wars whose winners may have been determined by weather events. The creation of Stradivarius violins, the painting The Scream, the novel Frankenstein, The Salem Witch Trials, the invention of the bicycle, and the development of Houston as a major city are among the events that may have been inspired or made possible by weather events. And, Bubonic Plague epidemics, the decline and disappearance of the Mayan Empire, and the three centuries of dominance of the British Empire may have been caused by weather events. Many weather and short-term climate events have transformed history – changing the results of wars, elections, culture, and human advancement. In this presentation I will examine about two dozen of the most important of these events – briefly discussing each and the impact they have had.
12:50 PM-1:30 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Daily Weather Briefings
Location: Room 17A (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
These 30-minute briefings will provide analyses and forecasts of major national weather features and impacts, with focus on central Texas weather affecting the meeting.
1:30 PM-2:30 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
N/A
Co-Chairs: Terry Nathan, Shuhua Chen
Health early warning systems are changing. The scope of hazards is widening, data from an increasing range of sources are being incorporated, time scales are lengthening, and warning system skills are increasing. There is an increasing need to share information across disciplines and sectors about how systems are developed, implemented, and improved over time; about their costs and benefits; and regarding best practices in modeling, implementation, and communications. Presentations describing early warning system innovations are encouraged, as well as those addressing questions of early warning systems best practices, implementation indicators, costs and benefits, inclusion of novel data streams, and intersectoral partnerships. Systems need not focus directly on health impacts but can instead focus on warning of hazards that pose risks to health.
1:30 PM-3:00 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Contributions to this session are sought in the application of AI techniques to study coastal problems including coastal hydrodynamics, beach and marsh morphology, applications of remote sensing observations, and other large data sets.
1:30 PM-3:15 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Including (i) the roles of plume, puff, Lagrangian particle, and other approaches; (ii) predictions for short averaging times (seconds to minutes) in hazards and other assessments; (iii) long-range transport models; and (iv) use of mesoscale models for providing meteorological data driving applied dispersion models.
1:30 PM-3:30 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
This session welcomes studies funded by, but not limited to, NASA’s Atmospheric Composition Modeling and Analysis Program (ACMAP) and Aura Science Team (AST). In particular, studies related to global and regional modeling and/or satellite data analysis in the area of atmospheric chemistry, air quality, and the oxidation efficiency in the troposphere; stratospheric chemistry and ozone depletion; and interactions between atmospheric chemistry, weather, and the climate are welcome. Studies of long-term trends in atmospheric composition are also of interest, where the connection between cause and effect is elucidated using models. The session is also interested in studies that integrate observations from NASA instruments with models to address attribution and predictions. Use of satellite and suborbital datasets and ground-based measurements are encouraged for modeling constraints and verification where applicable.
1:30 PM-3:45 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
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.
Businesses face many weather, climate, and other uncertainties in their planning and operations. These uncertainties are likely to increase in the future as infrastructure ages, temperatures increase, precipitation patterns change and intensify, populations grow, and economies change. While probabilistic information and uncertainty have always been an integral part of planning, design, and management, future changes in natural and human systems are forcing reassessments of how we understand and manage weather and climate risks. This session focuses on businesses that are embracing and addressing these uncertainties and scientists who work in partnership with them to develop ways to support adaptive management and resilient planning in this increasingly uncertain world. We seek innovators, both business representatives and scientists, who are working to bridge the research−business gulf and welcome examples focused on improving business planning and operations, as well as examples of research activities transitioning into, or enabled by, business-centered operations.
Data Assimilation: Advances in Methodologies, Part II
This session covers concepts and practices of mapping, modeling, and integrating atmospheric, hydrologic, and climatic data with GIS and related technologies, demonstrating the relevance of GIS to weather, hydrologic, and climate services.
This session will directly address a common shortcoming of climate and health interventions: it is difficult to truly change decision-making processes, change behavior, and evaluate effectiveness. This session will feature current research on, and narratives about, and approaches to doing this in some of the most vulnerable communities. Each presentation will focus on a specific decision-maker class, a population they serve, and the methods they use to truly change understanding and compel action to support vulnerable communities. All presentations will also demonstrate how these changes are evaluated and how learning from each extreme heat event and enhancing resilience can be built into systems of climate information and decision making.
2:45 PM-3:45 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
With the changing risk exposure to extreme events, there is heightened awareness among water utilities that they need to plan for future extremes. The goal of this session is to demonstrate how water utilities are incorporating weather and climate information in their short- and long-term planning. A panel of water utility managers/operators as well as researchers will focus on NOAA data, applications and activities such as the NOAA Water Initiative, NOAA Water Resources Dashboard (https://toolkit.climate.gov/topics/water/water-resources-dashboard), and regional activities (e.g., the Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISAs), River Forecast Centers, etc.). Panelists will share how they are currently engaging and using climate information to address their operational challenges, and their critical information gaps. Panel members will be chosen from submitted abstracts; those not chosen will be part of a poster session.
Increasing demand on the accuracy of weather and ocean forecasts as well as subseasonal to seasonal (S2S) and climate prediction requires advanced research on the coupled processes between the atmosphere, ocean, land, and hydrology. This session solicits contributions over a range of near-term, S2S, and climate time scales covering topics including but not limited to the study of coupled parameterizations, coupled processes, impacts of coupling, and verification of the coupled atmosphere–land, atmosphere–hydrology, land–hydrology, and ocean–hydrology. Submissions representing both global and regional applications of these prediction systems are encouraged.
3:15 PM-3:45 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
This session is concerned with the general characterization of bioaerosols and more specifically with the measurement and modeling of their generation, transport, dispersion, and reactivity in the atmosphere.
3:45 PM-5:30 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Formal Poster Viewing with Coffee Break
Location: Exhibit Hall 3 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
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.
For contributions submitted to the Sixth Symposium on the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation, for which 1) the preferred mode of presentation was specified as "poster" or 2) the preferred mode of presentation requested was specified as "oral" but insufficient oral presentation slots are available.
This is the poster presentation session for 20ATmChem organized by the AMS Committee of Atmospheric Chemistry
Aerosol–Cloud–Climate Interactions Posters
Wednesday Posters
Poster Submissions from All Topic Areas
This session encompasses advances in soil moisture observations, assimilation of soil moisture observations, the development and application of land data assimilation systems (LDAS), and new DA methods. Advances in the development and application of land data assimilation systems (LDAS), which merge ground- or satellite-based observations with land surface estimates from coupled land–atmosphere or offline land surface models are discussed within this session. Both soil moisture and non-soil-moisture characteristics provide crucial input for land surface interactions, hydrologic processes, boundary layer meteorology, mobility models, and climate. The most cutting edge methods for soil moisture sensing at various spatial and temporal scales are continually changing. Data assimilation of soil moisture and inclusion of soil state characteristics in forecast modeling present significant challenges due to the variability in observations, observation types, uncertainty associated with observations, and observational coverage. Contributions may include studies that evaluate or refine land DA methods; studies that assess the impact of the assimilation on the quality of the LDAS products, and/or apply LDAS within operational or routinely run forecasting/hindcasting systems; contributions that incorporate LDAS into coupled land–atmosphere systems are particularly encouraged; studies that explore assimilation of novel and/or multiple observation types; improvements and advances in in situ and proximal observation techniques and data processing; novel methods and applications for soil strength and soil crust investigations; satellite remote sensing observation and data processing techniques; use of high performance computing (HPC) for modeling soil state characteristics, improving data assimilation techniques; verification and validation efforts for spatiotemporally varying data using distinctly different data sources; performance of land surface models as compared to in situ, proximal, and remotely sensed soil moisture; data assimilation techniques for soil moisture. Searchable terms: soil moisture, land surface interactions, spatial and temporal variability, in situ and remote sensing. All topic areas are invited to include a description of the importance of communication to enable collaboration and the sharing of scientific knowledge, the importance of collaboration in advancing subject matter knowledge, enabling field work, and model development with respect to improving the science.
With the changing risk exposure to extreme events, there is heightened awareness among water utilities that they need to plan for future extremes. The goal of this session is to demonstrate how water utilities are incorporating weather and climate information in their short- and long-term planning. A panel of water utility managers/operators as well as researchers will focus on NOAA data, applications and activities such as the NOAA Water Initiative, NOAA Water Resources Dashboard (https://toolkit.climate.gov/topics/water/water-resources-dashboard), and regional activities [e.g., the Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISAs), River Forecast Centers, etc.]. Panelists will share how they are currently engaging and using climate information to address their operational challenges, and their critical information gaps. Panel members will be chosen from submitted abstracts; those not chosen will be part of a poster session.
The North and South American monsoons are of vital importance for regional water resources, agriculture, and ecosystems. Observations and modeling are the cornerstones of research efforts aimed at improving our understanding of the intraseasonal to interannual variability of the American monsoons and will ultimately lead to improved prediction of these systems. In this session, we invite papers on all aspects of variability and predictability of the North and South American monsoons. Papers including the role of low-level jets and associated transports of water vapor, subseasonal to seasonal (S2S) prediction, the role of land surface processes in the evolution of the American monsoons, mechanisms for the influence of MJO on monsoonal variability, interhemispheric effects, observational campaigns, and modeling efforts are especially welcome.
Increasing demand on the accuracy of weather and ocean forecasts as well as subseasonal to seasonal (S2S) and climate prediction requires advanced research on the coupled processes between the atmosphere, ocean, land, and hydrology. This session solicits contributions over a range of near-term, S2S, and climate time scales covering topics including but not limited to the study of coupled parameterizations, coupled processes, impacts of coupling, and verification of the coupled atmosphere–land, atmosphere–hydrology, land–hydrology, and ocean–hydrology. Submissions representing both global and regional applications of these prediction systems are encouraged.
The 32nd Conference on Hydrology is hosting a joint session with the 25th Conference Probability and Statistics on probabilistic hydrometeorological forecasting and uncertainty analysis. Over the last several decades, substantial progresses have been achieved in probabilistic hydrometeorological forecasting theories and applications. However, significant challenges still exist in assessing the quality and uncertainty of complex hydrometeorological processes and improving hydrometeorological predictions, especially high-impact hydrometeorological events. This session solicits papers but not limit to that focus on (1) addressing uncertainty in hydrometeorological forecasting from different sources in both offline and couple systems, and (2) hydrometeorological ensemble forecasting methods. The former might include uncertainties in forcing data (quantitative precipitation estimation, meteorological forcing data, and so on), initial conditions (such as soil moisture and heterogeneous geographical conditions), parameters, model structure (physics), calibration, and statistical postprocessing of hydrometeorological model output, and innovative methods for assessing uncertainty information from observations to modeling and postprocessing processes. The latter emphasizes integrated ensemble methods to improve individual hydrologic and atmospheric models, or coupled atmosphere–land–hydrology systems, verification methods to evaluate probabilistic hydrometeorological forecasting, and technologies to process systematic errors of hydrometeorological forecasting at different spatial and temporal scales.
Snow is a valuable freshwater reservoir throughout the globe. In regions where summer precipitation is limited and infrequent, the amount of water in the snowpack is crucial as these regions rely on annual spring melt for their water supply (both potable and agricultural). Moreover, large seasonal snow packs as well as other hydrologic characteristics (including SWE, soil moisture, ground water, frozen ground, etc.) often cause extraordinary flood hazards or may impact recreation and tourism during years with limited winter precipitation. In situ observations provide point-scale estimates of snow; however, these observations are sparse and are often not suitable for global-, regional-, or even watershed-scale investigations. Terrain, vegetation, and micrometeorological conditions often interact to cause large spatial variations in snow pack properties at sub-km scales, due to differential accumulation, redistribution, and melt, complicating the estimate of snow in mountainous regions. Therefore, satellite remote sensing and land surface modeling offer a means to address both the spatial and temporal scales of the sampling problem. Existing and novel remote sensing techniques have been developed to directly estimate snow properties. Land surface and hydrologic models have shown the use of snow properties, such as snow water equivalent, as important prognostic and diagnostic variables through modeling efforts. This session invites research on existing and novel methods for remote sensing of snow properties, modeling efforts to estimate snow properties, data assimilation techniques of using remote sensing observations within a modeling construct, and combinations of these frameworks to improve snow estimation capabilities.
Owing to changes in the Earth’s global climate, regional hydrologic components of the water cycle including precipitation and evapotranspiration (ET) are changing in terms of their mean values and associated variability. Given hydrologic extremes at local to global scales are predicted to occur more frequently and atmospheric demand on terrestrial surface moisture expected to increase, knowledge of the cumulative effects of these shifts on hydroclimate and regional water resources is greatly needed. Further, with water availability and growing scarcity of critical importance to human society, increased knowledge into changes in regional water resources such as snow cover, groundwater storage and soil moisture, and sources of regional hydroclimate variability are critical. As such, this session will bring together presentations that focus on the impacts of a changing climate on the variability of hydrological processes on the regional scale. Submissions are encouraged on all topics related to improving our understanding of natural and anthropogenic impacts on regional hydroclimate variability across the world. This includes studies using process-based models, empirical analyses, and investigations of the paleoclimate record. In keeping with the theme of the meeting, we also encourage those presentations highlighting innovative approaches toward communication and coproduction of knowledge between researchers, stakeholders, and policy makers.
Urban climate literature consistently suggests that cities impact the water cycle through modifications in evapotranspiration, precipitation, and surface runoff processes. These impacts extend beyond the urban core into adjacent suburban, ex-urban, and rural areas. This session seeks to highlight emerging research that focuses on quantitative analysis of observations and numerical simulations surrounding hydrometeorological response to urbanization on the local and regional scale. Advancements in urban climate theory and research-to-application methods related to the water cycle are also welcome.
This session focuses on multiple processes analysis and simulation including but not limited to land–atmosphere water and energy cycles in arid and semiarid regions, where water resources and ecosystems are vulnerable to climate change. To investigate the water and energy cycle over arid and semiarid regions, the impact of irrigation and ground water (pumping) dynamics, and vegetation dynamics are tested, analyzed and compared from offline land surface modeling and coupled NWP model to those based on reanalysis product, remote sensing, and in situ observations. Furthermore, accuracy, uncertainty, and error analysis for each individual energy and water component is useful for physical processes understanding and data product application. The temporal scale covers from hourly to interannual and spatial scale covers from local, watershed, regional and global scale. In addition, application of these data and products to drought/flood formation mechanism, monitoring and prediction, agricultural and water resource management, and long-term trend analysis are also welcome.
Observing Systems and Numerical Simulations
5:30 PM-6:30 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Awards Banquet Reception
Location: Exhibit Hall 4 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
In advance of the AMS Annual Awards Banquet, all attendees are invited to a reception in Exhibit Hall 4. Our exhibitors come from all over the United States and abroad and showcase a wide range of products, publications, and services. This is a great opportunity to browse new publications, visit interactive exhibits, pick up AMS merchandise, or network with vendors.
7:00 PM-9:00 PM: Wednesday, 10 January 2018
98th AMS Awards Banquet
Location: Ballroom D (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
Thursday, 11 January 2018
7:30 AM-3:00 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
AMS Information Desk
Location: Austin, Texas
Member Services Desk
Location: Atrium Lobby (Austin, Texas)
Registration
Location: Atrium Lobby (Austin, Texas)
7:30 AM-5:00 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Speaker Ready Room
Location: Room 11AB (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
8:30 AM-9:15 AM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
8:30 AM-9:30 AM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
As noted by policy letters and statement, radio spectrum is integral to many aspects of meteorology, essential to the operation of radars, satellites, passive and active remote sensing, and dissemination. Domestic and international regulators are constantly looking for new spectrum in support of commercial wireless. Some proposals can impact spectrum usage for meteorology and hydrology. The community must better understand the role of radio spectrum in the creation and transmission of scientific data, products, forecasts, advisories, and warnings.
Many shallow cloud systems are sensitive to changes in aerosol properties, which act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN, or giant CCN), modulate cloud microphysical properties, and can influence precipitation formation and cloud scale dynamics. In addition, absorbing aerosols can modulate the thermodynamic environment experienced by clouds. Ultimately, these controls may alter low cloud radiative properties and climate. Aerosol particles, in turn, are impacted by shallow cloud processes. Together, these interactions result in a coupling of the aerosol–cloud system whose coupling strength is highly variable and is poorly understood in terms of basic process understanding. Correctly representing this coupling has proven challenging to represent in large scale models. In this session, we invite presentations on all topics related to aerosol–cloud coupling in shallow clouds, including those addressing basic physical understanding, the quantification of aerosol indirect effects, cloud effects on aerosols, and the coupling between aerosols and boundary layer turbulence, cloud dynamics, and precipitation.
Data Assimilation: Advances in Methodologies, Part III
Urban climate literature consistently suggests that cities impact the water cycle through modifications in evapotranspiration, precipitation, and surface runoff processes. These impacts extend beyond the urban core into adjacent suburban, exurban, and rural areas. This session seeks to highlight emerging research that focuses on quantitative analysis of observations and numerical simulations surrounding hydrometeorological response to urbanization on the local and regional scale. Advancements in urban climate theory and research-to-application methods related to the water cycle are also welcome.
These sessions are devoted to current and next generation weather radars, with emphasis on radar meteorology science, weather radar applications, weather radar signal processing, weather radar prototype developments, and experimental weather radar data collections.
The NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission has embarked on a unique global transect of tropospheric chemistry, measuring a full suite of reactive gases and aerosols along curtains through the remote Pacific and Atlantic Ocean basins. These ocean basins comprise most of the photochemical activity of the troposphere, controlling the global abundances of many species such as methane and tropospheric ozone. By the time this session begins, three of the four-season deployments will be completed and the datasets from the first two deployments will be publicly available. We invite presentations using ATom data, including in combination with other data, that examine the global scope of tropospheric gases and aerosols, particularly considering the evidence for and impacts of distant pollution sources on the oceanic atmosphere.
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The North and South American monsoons are of vital importance for regional water resources, agriculture and ecosystems. Observations and modeling are the cornerstones of research efforts aimed at improving our understanding of the intraseasonal to interannual variability of the American monsoons and will ultimately lead to improved prediction of these systems. In this session, we invite papers on all aspects of variability and predictability of the North and South American monsoons. Papers including the role of low-level jets and associated transports of water vapor, subseasonal to seasonal (S2S) prediction, the role of land surface processes in the evolution of the American monsoons, mechanisms for the influence of MJO on monsoonal variability, interhemispheric effects, observational campaigns, and modeling efforts are especially welcome.
It is now well recognized that international and global flows of pollutants contribute to ozone and aerosol pollution observed at the regional and local scales. However, quantifying the contribution of the long-range transport to observed air pollution and exceedances of ambient standards continues to be a scientific challenge. This session will explore recent and ongoing work to quantify extra-regional contributions to exceedances of air quality standards using global and regional models and the analysis of ground-, aircraft-, and space-based observations. The session will also explore projections of how international and global flows of pollutants are expected to change as a result of changes in global emissions and climate.
9:00 AM-12:00 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Exhibit Hall
Location: Exhibit Hall 4 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
9:30 AM-10:30 AM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Exhibit Hall Breakfast
Location: Exhibit Hall 4 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
10:00 AM-10:30 AM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Meet President Roger M. Wakimoto
Location: Exhibit Hall 4 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
Check back soon for more information.
10:30 AM-11:15 AM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
10:30 AM-11:45 AM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
10:30 AM-12:00 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Data Assimilation: Advances in Methodologies, Part IV
This session will explore the business and user-centric APIs and web services associated with scientific inquiry, technological advances, societal implications, infrastructure planning, and public safety and awareness. This session will allow speakers to present user communication needs, potential APIs, and integrated decision support tools across the hydro-meteorological enterprise.
This session focuses on multiple processes analysis and simulation including but not limited to land–atmosphere water and energy cycles in arid and semiarid regions, where water resources and ecosystems are vulnerable to climate change. To investigate the water and energy cycle over arid and semiarid regions, the impact of irrigation and ground water (pumping) dynamics, and vegetation dynamics are tested, analyzed, and compared from offline land surface modeling and coupled NWP model to those based on reanalysis product, remote sensing, and in situ observations. Furthermore, accuracy, uncertainty, and error analysis for each individual energy and water component is useful for physical processes understanding and data product application. The temporal scale covers from hourly to interannual and spatial scale covers from local, watershed, regional and global scale. In addition, application of these data and products to drought/flood formation mechanism, monitoring and prediction, agricultural and water resource management, and long-term trend analysis are also welcome.
These sessions are devoted to current and next generation weather radars, with emphasis on radar meteorology science, weather radar applications, weather radar signal processing, weather radar prototype developments, and experimental weather radar data collections.
Snow is a valuable freshwater reservoir throughout the globe. In regions where summer precipitation is limited and infrequent, the amount of water in the snowpack is crucial as these regions rely on annual spring melt for their water supply (both potable and agricultural). Moreover, large seasonal snow packs as well as other hydrologic characteristics (including SWE, soil moisture, ground water, frozen ground, etc.) often cause extraordinary flood hazards or may impact recreation and tourism during years with limited winter precipitation. In situ observations provide point-scale estimates of snow; however, these observations are sparse and are often not suitable for global-, regional-, or even watershed-scale investigations. Terrain, vegetation, and micrometeorological conditions often interact to cause large spatial variations in snow pack properties at sub-km scales, due to differential accumulation, redistribution, and melt, complicating the estimate of snow in mountainous regions. Therefore, satellite remote sensing and land surface modeling offer a means to address both the spatial and temporal scales of the sampling problem. Existing and novel remote sensing techniques have been developed to directly estimate snow properties. Land surface and hydrologic models have shown the use of snow properties, such as snow water equivalent, as important prognostic and diagnostic variables through modeling efforts. This session invites research on existing and novel methods for remote sensing of snow properties, modeling efforts to estimate snow properties, data assimilation techniques of using remote sensing observations within a modeling construct, and combinations of these frameworks to improve snow estimation capabilities.
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The CYGNSS constellation of eight satellites was successfully launched on 15 December 2016 into a low inclination (tropical) Earth orbit. Each satellite carries a four-channel bi-static radar receiver that measures GPS signals scattered by the ocean, from which ocean surface roughness, near-surface wind speed, and air–sea latent heat flux are estimated. The measurements are unique in several respects, most notably in their ability to penetrate through all levels of precipitation, made possible by the low frequency at which GPS operates, and in the frequent sampling of tropical cyclone intensification and of the diurnal cycle of winds, made possible by the large number of satellites. Engineering commissioning of the constellation was successfully completed in March 2017 and the mission is currently in the early phase of science operations. Level 2 science data products have been developed for near-surface (10 m referenced) ocean wind speed, ocean surface roughness (mean square slope), and latent heat flux. Level 3 gridded versions of the L2 products have also been developed. A set of Level 4 products have also been developed specifically for direct tropical cyclone overpasses. These include the storm intensity (peak sustained winds) and size (radius of maximum winds), its extent (34, 50, and 64 knot wind radii), and its integrated kinetic energy. Assimilation of CYGNSS L2 wind speed data into the HWRF hurricane weather prediction model has also been developed. Early on-orbit scientific results by the mission science team and others will presented.
This session focuses on the coupling of chemistry and meteorology in chemical transport models for air quality simulations/applications and in particular for ozone and PM2.5 impacts due to large single sources (e.g., power plants). Other key issues include the effects of boundary layer and land surface processes on air quality, the impact of clouds and precipitation on air quality, and modeling processes across scales.
11:00 AM-12:00 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
AMA
Location: Exhibit Hall 4 (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
12:00 PM-1:30 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
David J. Raymond Symposium Luncheon
Location: Ballroom A (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
12:15 PM-1:15 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Open discussion with Mary Erickson, the Deputy Assistant Administrator of the National Weather Service, on advances in water resources modeling and the future integration of enhanced modeling capabilities -- including estuary and coastal models, a hyper-resolution nest, groundwater modeling, and water quality models -- into the National Water Model. This follows the inaugural Annual NOAA Water Meeting which was comprised of all NOAA offices involved in the implementation plan for the NOAA Water Initiative Five-Year Vision and Plan, which was published in 2016. This session includes a panel discussion comprised of additional experts who will discuss the path forward on water science and services for the agency.
12:50 PM-1:30 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Daily Weather Briefings
Location: Room 17A (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
These 30-minute briefings will provide analyses and forecasts of major national weather features and impacts, with focus on central Texas weather affecting the meeting.
1:30 PM-2:30 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
The session will feature a talk from Danielle Murray, Manager of Solar Energy Services at Austin Energy. The purpose of the session is to provide an overview of how Austin and the surrounding region are incorporating sustainable energy into their power mix.
1:30 PM-3:00 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Observation Sensitivity and Impact Experiments, Part I
These sessions are devoted to current and next generation weather radars, with emphasis on radar meteorology science, weather radar applications, weather radar signal processing, weather radar prototype developments, and experimental weather radar data collections.
The 32nd Conference on Hydrology is hosting a joint session with the 25th Conference Probability and Statistics on probabilistic hydrometeorological forecasting and uncertainty analysis. Over the last several decades, substantial progresses have been achieved in probabilistic hydrometeorological forecasting theories and applications. However, significant challenges still exist in assessing the quality and uncertainty of complex hydrometeorological processes and improving hydrometeorological predictions, especially high-impact hydrometeorological events. This session solicits papers but not limit to that focus on (1) addressing uncertainty in hydrometeorological forecasting from different sources in both offline and couple systems, and (2) hydrometeorological ensemble forecasting methods. The former might include uncertainties in forcing data (quantitative precipitation estimation, meteorological forcing data, and so on), initial conditions (such as soil moisture and heterogeneous geographical conditions), parameters, model structure (physics), calibration, and statistical postprocessing of hydrometeorological model output, and innovative methods for assessing uncertainty information from observations to modeling and postprocessing processes. The latter emphasizes integrated ensemble methods to improve individual hydrologic and atmospheric models, or coupled atmosphere–land–hydrology systems, verification methods to evaluate probabilistic hydrometeorological forecasting, and technologies to process systematic errors of hydrometeorological forecasting at different spatial and temporal scales.
Owing to changes in the Earth’s global climate, regional hydrologic components of the water cycle including precipitation and evapotranspiration (ET) are changing in terms of their mean values and associated variability. Given hydrologic extremes at local to global scales are predicted to occur more frequently and atmospheric demand on terrestrial surface moisture expected to increase, knowledge of the cumulative effects of these shifts on hydroclimate and regional water resources is greatly needed. Further, with water availability and growing scarcity of critical importance to human society, increased knowledge into changes in regional water resources such as snow cover, groundwater storage and soil moisture, and sources of regional hydroclimate variability are critical. As such, this session will bring together presentations that focus on the impacts of a changing climate on the variability of hydrological processes on the regional scale. Submissions are encouraged on all topics related to improving our understanding of natural and anthropogenic impacts on regional hydroclimate variability across the world. This includes studies using process-based models, empirical analyses, and investigations of the paleoclimate record. In keeping with the theme of the meeting, we also encourage those presentations highlighting innovative approaches toward communication and coproduction of knowledge between researchers, stakeholders, and policy makers.
Atmospheric aerosols originate from multiple natural and anthropogenic sources, and their emission strengths depend strongly on a combination of biological, geologic, human, and meteorological factors. Once emitted into the atmosphere, they often form complex mixtures that affect the earth system on multiple spatial and temporal scales. Natural aerosols can undergo volatilization and condensation, aggregation and disaggregation, photochemical reactions, and mixing with other compounds as they are transported downwind leading to heterogeneous structure both chemically and physically. Current studies show that these aerosol mixtures can have strong impacts on human health, ecosystems, global climate, and weather. It is important to understand these complex aerosol mixtures including their chemical make-up, biological implications, and physical properties, as well as their distribution, fate, and transport in the atmosphere. Recent advances in aerosol modeling have opened a wealth of questions pertaining to the relationship of aerosol chemical evolution, new particle formation, compositional influences on cloud microphysics, and radiative balance. Despite these advances, challenges remain with respect to model verification of aerosol distributions and aerosol properties—especially in under-sampled regions of the globe. This session solicits presentations of research studies on naturally occurring aerosols; e.g., mineral dust, wildfire smoke, sea salt, pollen, and biogenic particles, with a focus on multidisciplinary efforts that investigate their emissions strength, source properties, physical complexity and mixtures, chemical transformations, and transport. Many of these aerosols are directly emitted from other parts of the Earth system, but others can also form or be modified in the atmosphere due to interaction with gaseous emissions and photochemical reactions. This is especially the case with biogenic aerosols, where gas phase volatile organic compounds are emitted that may serve as precursors to secondary organic aerosol formation. Presentations that discuss the novel advances in measurement, modeling and analysis of naturally occurring aerosols including the characterization of the composition of aerosol mixtures, quantifying emission strength, understanding transport and photochemical evolution, and estimating their weather, climate, ecological, or health & safety implications are also invited. Through this session, we hope to catalyze discussions on the chemistry, physics, and biology of aerosols from emissions to impacts.
2:30 PM-3:00 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
2:30 PM-4:30 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Join us on a trip to the Webberville Solar Farm, a 35-megawatt direct current (DC) photovoltaic system located 22 miles north of downtown Austin on a 380-acre site owned by the City of Austin. Backup location for this tour will be the Kingsbery community solar project, now being developed on a 26-acre site about 4 miles east of downtown Austin.
3:00 PM-3:30 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
3:30 PM-4:45 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Anthropogenic air pollutant emissions, including those from transportation, industrial, residential, and commercial sectors, as well as from wild fires and prescribed burning, contribute to the long-existing air pollution problems (PM2.5/10, VOCs, O3, NOx, SOx, NH3) around the globe, especially in megacities and in the developing world, in addition to the warming produced by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These pollutants have been found to have profound impacts on public health in terms of mortality, asthma, and heart conditions. These adverse effects may be enhanced in the future due to global climate change. Mitigation of the effects of air pollution and substantial reduction of air pollutant emissions are critical issues facing policymakers to protect public health and society development. This session solicits observational, modeling and/or multi-disciplinary scientific investigations of both aerosol and trace gas (composition) pollutants to address process level understanding of air quality issues and their impacts on human, environmental and agricultural health. Atmospheric constituents of interests include: ground-level ozone (O3), oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and sulfur (SOx), ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), airborne respirable particulate matter (PM2.5), and inhalable particulate matter (PM2.5-PM10).
3:30 PM-5:00 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Observation Sensitivity and Impact Experiments, Part II
The 32nd Conference on Hydrology is hosting a joint session with the 25th Conference Probability and Statistics on probabilistic hydrometeorological forecasting and uncertainty analysis. Over the last several decades, substantial progresses have been achieved in probabilistic hydrometeorological forecasting theories and applications. However, significant challenges still exist in assessing the quality and uncertainty of complex hydrometeorological processes and improving hydrometeorological predictions, especially high-impact hydrometeorological events. This session solicits papers that focus on, but are not limited to, (1) addressing uncertainty in hydrometeorological forecasting from different sources in both offline and couple systems, and (2) hydrometeorological ensemble forecasting methods. The former might include uncertainties in forcing data (quantitative precipitation estimation, meteorological forcing data, and so on), initial conditions (such as soil moisture and heterogeneous geographical conditions), parameters, model structure (physics), calibration, and statistical postprocessing of hydrometeorological model output, and innovative methods for assessing uncertainty information from observations to modeling and postprocessing processes. The latter emphasizes integrated ensemble methods to improve individual hydrologic and atmospheric models, or coupled atmosphere–land–hydrology systems, verification methods to evaluate probabilistic hydrometeorological forecasting, and technologies to process systematic errors of hydrometeorological forecasting at different spatial and temporal scales.
Owing to changes in the Earth’s global climate, regional hydrologic components of the water cycle including precipitation and evapotranspiration (ET) are changing in terms of their mean values and associated variability. Given hydrologic extremes at local to global scales are predicted to occur more frequently and atmospheric demand on terrestrial surface moisture expected to increase, knowledge of the cumulative effects of these shifts on hydroclimate and regional water resources is greatly needed. Further, with water availability and growing scarcity of critical importance to human society, increased knowledge into changes in regional water resources such as snow cover, groundwater storage and soil moisture, and sources of regional hydroclimate variability are critical. As such, this session will bring together presentations that focus on the impacts of a changing climate on the variability of hydrological processes on the regional scale. Submissions are encouraged on all topics related to improving our understanding of natural and anthropogenic impacts on regional hydroclimate variability across the world. This includes studies using process-based models, empirical analyses, and investigations of the paleoclimate record. In keeping with the theme of the meeting, we also encourage those presentations highlighting innovative approaches toward communication and coproduction of knowledge between researchers, stakeholders, and policy makers.
5:00 PM-5:05 PM: Thursday, 11 January 2018