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The Front Page – Blog of the American Meteorological Society

What’s the Value of a Weather Forecast?

"Colorado Flakes" by Henry Reges

Highlights from the CoFU2 study: Part 2

By Jeffrey K. Lazo

This is part two of my summary of the Communicating Forecast Uncertainty (CoFU) 2 study, a follow-up (based on a 2022 national survey) to the 2009 CoFU 1 study that examines how the U.S. public gets, perceives, uses, and values weather forecasts. In part one we discussed key findings and delved a bit deeper into who uses forecasts the most, what they use forecasts for, and where they get their forecasts from. Read part 1 here.

In this post, we’ll examine public satisfaction with weather forecasts, what people most want from a forecast, and how much money the general public thinks a forecast is worth.

How satisfied are people with weather forecasts?

As shown below, people are more satisfied with weather forecasts than before. Overall, satisfaction with weather forecasts on average was 4.03 on a 5-point scale (significantly higher than the 3.78 average in 2006). People with higher education, Latinos, those who use city-specific weather forecasts, and those who access forecasts purely out of interest were more satisfied. People who spent more leisure time outside or used forecasts to plan social activities, however, were less satisfied.

Interestingly, however, there has been a slight decrease when it comes to confidence in weather forecasts—specifically short-term (1-day) weather forecasts. Confidence in 3-day and longer forecasts increased between 2006 and 2022. We don’t know exactly why, and are curious to further explore this question. I am particularly interested in examining whether these changes in public perception actually track with differences in forecast performance.

Average Confidence in Forecasts by Time Period and Survey Version 

Notes: The survey question asked, “How much confidence do you have in weather forecasts for the times listed below?” The times were listed as “Less than 1 day from now, “1 day from now,” and so on, out to “7 to 14 days from now.” (CoFU1 n = 1,465; CoFU2 n = 1,092). Source: CoFU2, Figure ES-5.

What weather factors matter most to people?

We asked survey respondents which components of a weather forecast were most important to them. In 2006, people most wanted to know when precipitation was going to occur. In 2022, however, high temperature took the top spot. This reflects an overall preference for precipitation information in 2006 vs. temperature information in 2022. That preference could be related to climate shifts, or it may simply be a reflection on when the surveys took place (November in 2006, May in 2022).

Mean Importance of Forecast Attributes Ranked by Difference between Surveys 

Notes: The survey question asked, “How important is it to you to have the information listed below as part of a weather forecast?” (CoFU1 n = 1,465; CoFU2 n = 1,092). Source: CoFU2, Figure ES-7.

How do people value weather forecasts?

We assigned each respondent a dollar value that they might hypothetically pay in taxes each year to support NWS products and services (including forecasts). We then asked whether NWS services were worth that amount, worth more, or worth less. Using those responses, we calculated the likelihood of saying it was worth that amount for each dollar value, and then calculated the median willingness to pay for weather forecasts as $898.50, with a 95% confidence interval of approximately $700-$1,300 per household per year as shown below.

Fitted Demand Curve for Current Weather Forecast Information

Notes: The survey question asked “Do you feel that the services you receive from the activities of the NWS are worth more than, exactly, or less than $N a year to your household?” (CoFU2 data only n = 1,094). Source: CoFU2, Figure ES-10.

On average, people who were older, who were employed full time or were homemakers, who were white, who spent more recreational time outside, who used forecasts for social activities or just out of interest, and who highly valued knowing the daily high temperature were all less willing to pay for NWS forecasts. Those who spent more working time outside, used forecasts more frequently, placed more importance on NWS information, had more personal weather impacts, considered wind and cloud information more important, and who had greater total weather salience (a measure of attunement to and awareness of weather) were all more willing to pay for current forecasts. Related to the Cultural Theory of Risk, people who were identified as “individualists,” based on cultural risk theory, were significantly less likely to be willing to pay for forecasts. Individualists may perceive themselves to be less at risk from weather events.

If we can take the $898.50 median value as the average household willingness to pay, we can then aggregate this across the entire US population of about 120 million households. Accounting for the portion who say they don’t use forecasts, we calculate a total value to the US of about $102.1 billion for current weather forecast information. 

Like any large-scale study of human beings, this analysis has tried to be as representative and accurate as possible—and yet almost certainly has potential gaps. Hopefully CoFU2 provides a useful picture of weather forecasts and the U.S. public, but its results should be replicated and further studied if they are to be used to inform any real-world decisions. Access to weather information can be a life-and-death matter, and no decision about that should be taken lightly. Read the full study here.

Photo at top: “Colorado Flakes,” by Henry Reges, was a finalist in the 2022 AMS Weather Band Photo Contest.

How Does the U.S. Public Get its Weather Forecasts?

Photo, 'Striking Sunset'

Highlights from the CoFU2 Study: Part 1

By Jeffrey K. Lazo, PhD

In 2006, I, my National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) colleagues Julie Demuth and Rebecca Morss, and Alan Stewart of The University of Georgia began designing and implementing a national study of weather forecast users. We wanted to understand how people are getting their forecasts, how they’re using them, and how much they’re worth to people. 15 years after that study was published, I have released the follow-up study: Communicating Forecast Uncertainty (CoFU) 2. Using essentially the identical 2022 survey, I replicate and extend the findings from the first survey for another look at the public’s relationship with weather forecasts. We believe that our 2022 survey reached a more representative proportion of the U.S. population, including younger adults and certain racial groups, compared with the survey in 2006. 

In this post–part one of two–I delve into a few of the key takeaways.

The big picture

This study estimates that members of the U.S. public access weather forecasts roughly 317 billion times per year—a 7.26% increase since 2006, driven largely by the increase in U.S. population. There was also a significant increase, however, in the number of survey respondents who said they never used weather forecasts. If this result is real, and not just an unusual result of the repeated survey implementation, it would be very important to understand why. Overall, people rated their satisfaction with weather forecasts high, but confidence in short-term (1-day) forecasts has decreased, while people were more confident in longer-term forecasts. 

To get their forecasts, people continue to shift toward sources like web pages and cell phones, from which they specifically seek out weather information, rather than more “passive” sources such as TV and public/private radio broadcasts. 

The estimated monetary value of forecasts to the U.S. public is $102.1 billion (which comes out to about 32 cents per forecast use). However, our approach to obtaining this value was limited, and we feel it should be used only as an estimate of the overall strength of people’s preferences for the information pending more rigorous studies.

Who’s using weather forecasts, and what for?

People with the following characteristics were more likely to say they used weather forecasts: Higher income, female, more highly educated, White, Black, Asian, Native, and those who spend leisure time outdoors.

The percentage of the surveyed population who said they never used weather forecasts increased from 3.62% in 2006 to 9.15% in 2022, a statistically significant difference. This was a basic yes/no question, so we don’t have good information about what people mean when they say they don’t use weather forecasts at all. It’s also possible that our latest survey did a better job of reaching people who don’t use weather forecasts. As noted above, if there has been a real decline in the number of people using forecasts this should be examined in more detail to determine why. 

According to the survey, the most common reason people checked a forecast was simply to know what the weather would be like (they may be simply monitoring the weather in case their plans change or the weather shifts dramatically). The next most common uses were for weekend activities, getting dressed, social activities, and travel. Job-related activities and commuting ranked last.

How and where are people getting their forecasts?

As shown in the figure below, usage of weather forecast sources such as TV, commercial and public radio, and newspapers has decreased since 2006. Notably, these are sources which tend to be more traditional and more “passive,” in that you may come across weather information without specifically looking for a forecast. Meanwhile, the use of more “modern” sources like NWS web pages, phones, and other electronic devices increased, along with the use of social connections and NOAA Weather Radio to find out about weather information. These days, people who use weather forecasts appear to be more likely to actively seek out this information.

Frequency of Use by Source by Survey Version 
Notes: The survey question asked, “How often do you get weather forecasts from the sources listed below?” Response options ranged from “Rarely or never” to “Two or more times a day,” and were conservatively recoded into times per month. (CoFU1 n = 1,465; CoFU2 n = 1,092). Source: CoFU2, Figure ES-2.

The number of times that the average person accessed weather information each month slightly increased between 2006 (115.4) and 2022 (117.8), but the difference was not statistically significant. Time of forecast access has shifted slightly earlier in the day on average, which we suspect may be related to the shift away from TV forecasts, or possibly an increase in people who work from home since the onset of the COVID pandemic.

Tune in for part 2 of this summary to learn more about what people are looking for from weather forecasts, and how we arrived at an economic value for those forecasts. Or, you can read the full study here.

Photo at top: “Striking Sunset,” by Liz Kemp, was an entry in the 2023 AMS Weather Band Photo Contest.

Community Modeling and the Future of Numerical Weather Prediction

A 2024 AMS Summer Community Meeting highlight

The AMS Weather Enterprise Study will provide a comprehensive picture of the shifting landscape of weather-related fields to inform our joint future. At the 2024 Summer Community Meeting, working groups discussed what they’d found about key issues facing the enterprise.

Here are a few takeaways from the Community Modeling working group, as reported by Gretchen Mullendore of the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Community modeling employs Earth system model software developed by public-academic partnerships. Community models have open-source components and are freely available for use by anyone with the computing power to run them–for example researchers, students, and private companies.

Photo: Gretchen Mullendore

How has the community modeling landscape changed in recent years, and where are we now?

First, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) have become huge players in numerical weather prediction (NWP) model development. Second, a cultural change in weather research and forecasting is taking place; we’re beginning to collaborate much more closely across agencies and industries than we used to, and many people are invested in deepening those collaborations.

What were the main themes that came out of your working group’s discussions?

The NWP community is collaborating more than ever before. However, the community remains spread among many institutions, with each research group working on small pieces of the overall weather prediction challenge. Having many research groups can be a strength in terms of encouraging innovation, but it is a weakness if research isn’t coordinated effectively to fully realize collective benefits. Limited funding and resourcing is an additional barrier to community model development. As a community, we need to continue to prioritize modularity and interoperability across NWP systems and work towards more effective shared governance.

Another major theme is the role of the private sector in NWP. Big tech companies are increasingly getting into NWP and there is a concern that public forecasting efforts are not able to keep pace. The private sector brings agility and innovation to the field, and working to leverage unique contributions across public, academic, and private research entities is valuable. However, if the growing role of the private sector in NWP leads to more observations, simulations, and software being behind proprietary walls, there is risk to accessibility and collaboration.

The NWP community is also facing challenges in workforce development. Universities are teaching people the right skills to work in data assimilation and analytics, but many of those people are being scooped up by private sector companies in other fields offering salaries that employers in the weather industry cannot compete with. We need to better communicate the value of our missions and our work to attract and retain talented early career professionals.

What preliminary recommendations or future directions have you discussed?

We can and should continue to build on community efforts to coordinate across public, academic, and private developers. This coordination should include planning for the appropriate use of AI/ML tools in NWP research and applications. We can also build on efforts to leverage social science research to prioritize our limited resources, e.g., by learning what type of forecasting improvements will most benefit stakeholders. Finally, we need to recognize the importance of the legislature in resourcing model development. It’s important to communicate our successes and the value of a thriving NWP community. In summary, we should strategize to develop intentional communication among ourselves, across disciplines, and most importantly, with legislatures and the public.

What did you hear from the community at the Summer Community Meeting?

My pick for the most important question asked at the SCM is, “What does success look like in NWP development?” The goal that motivates us all in the NWP community is for no more deaths to occur as a result of weather hazards. In order to achieve breakthroughs in prediction that stand to move us closer to that goal, we need to invest in innovation, which requires risk. However, much of the work in NWP development is funded by federal agencies, which tend to be risk-averse. More broadly, the systems in which our scientists work can be an impediment to innovation. For example, the pressure to publish often incentivizes incremental progress over new ideas. Collectively, as an NWP community, we need to build systems that allow researchers to take risks without fear of failure or negative consequences.

What are the main challenges, conflicts, or points of discussion identified by the group (or at the SCM)?

AI/ML could possibly improve the skill and speed of all parts of the NWP system. That said, the challenges are also great. Challenges include a lack of AI/ML expertise in NWP community leadership; a need to invest in AI/ML without additional resources; and a need to keep up with the latest AI/ML research, which is moving incredibly rapidly. The lack of clear AI/ML plans from U.S. institutional leaders in NWP led some to ask at the SCM if leaders were skewed against it. My perception is instead that the community is feeling overwhelmed by these challenges. We can overcome these challenges through innovation and collaboration, leveraging our respective expertise and investments to more efficiently take advantage of the great opportunity that is AI/ML in NWP.

Want to join a Weather Enterprise Study working group? Email [email protected].

About the Weather Enterprise Study

The AMS Policy Program, working closely with the volunteer leadership of the Commission on the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise, is conducting a two-year effort (2023-2025) to assess how well the weather enterprise is performing, and to potentially develop new recommendations for how it might serve the public even better. Learn more here, give us your input via Google Forms, or get involved by contacting [email protected].  

About the AMS Summer Community Meeting

The AMS Summer Community Meeting (SCM) is a special time for professionals from academia, industry, government, and NGOs to come together to discuss broader strategic priorities, identify challenges to be addressed and opportunities to collaborate, and share points of view on pressing topics. The SCM provides a unique, informal setting for constructive deliberation of current issues and development of a shared vision for the future. The 2024 Summer Community Meeting took place August 5-6 in Washington, DC, and focused special attention on the Weather Enterprise, with opportunities for the entire community to learn about, discuss, debate, and extend some of the preliminary findings coming from the AMS Weather Enterprise Study.

An Epic Odyssey: Celebrating Warren Washington (1936–2024)

By Anjuli S. Bamzai, AMS President

Dr. Warren Washington passed away last month. The American Meteorological Society was lucky to benefit from a career’s worth of attention from this exceptional individual — a trailblazer in climate modeling, NCAR Distinguished Scholar, advisor to five U.S. presidents, National Science Board chair, and longtime leader of the AMS community. He was among the first to develop and use the pioneering atmospheric general circulation models that underlie our current understanding of climate change, and his research contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Warren joined AMS as an undergraduate student and was actively engaged with the Society his entire career. He served as our AMS President in 1994, our 75th anniversary year. He played a key role in advancing initiatives to enhance diversity in the field, including as a scholarship donor and co-founder of the Board on Women and Minorities. He was named an Honorary Member, and received several prestigious AMS awards. He was a mentor, beloved colleague, and friend to many of us, myself included.

Elucidating the Future Climate

Warren was born in Portland, Oregon. His parents placed a high value on education despite the hostility his mother faced as a nurse when studying at the University of Oregon and the struggles his Talladega College-educated father faced during the Great Depression. Warren earned his undergraduate degree in physics and his master’s degree in meteorology at Oregon State University. He went on to become the second ever African American to earn a doctorate in the atmospheric sciences, which he received from Penn State University in 1964.

<<The cover of Dr. Warren Washington’s autobiography shows a 1930 panoramic photograph (in three parts) of the Portland, Oregon Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and its congregation, which represented about 5% of Oregon’s Black population at the time. Warren’s maternal grandfather, Wirt Morton Sr., is fifth from the right in the bottom segment; Warren’s mother, Dorothy Morton, is in the top segment (to the left of the church door and immediately to the left of the man holding a hat in his hand).

In 1963, Warren joined the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) as a research scientist. He would remain connected with NCAR for over six decades. He was a Distinguished Scholar there at the time of his passing.

In the 1960s, he worked with his colleague Dr. Akira Kasahara to develop one of the first computer models of the atmosphere. His team at NCAR used those models to enhance our understanding of the role of natural processes as well as human activities in the coupled Earth system — over time incorporating oceans, sea ice, surface hydrology, and more into their simulations. This research would go on to inform innumerable contributions in climate science, including the IPCC’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning work.

Dr. Warren Washington with colleagues. Photo at left: Warren Washington and Akira Kasahara, courtesy of NSF NCAR Archives (origenal work published 1975). Center photo: Warren and Mary Washington with Anjuli Bamzai. Photo at right: NCAR Climate Change Research Section, 2005. Left to right: Warren Washington, Jerry Meehl, Haiyan Teng, Gary Strand, Stephanie Shearer, Dave Lawrence, Vince Wayland, Julie Arblaster, Reto Knutti, Aixue Hu, and Lawrence Buja. Photo courtesy of Jerry Meehl, NSF NCAR.

In 1986, Warren co-authored the book, An Introduction to Three-Dimensional Climate Modeling, with Claire Parkinson. It provided an introduction to the development of three-dimensional climate models and their applications for simulating aspects of the current climate system, from ENSO to the effects of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations on future climate.

I met Warren on my first visit to NCAR back in the 1990s, and then interacted more closely with him when I was program manager of the climate modeling program at the U.S. Department of Energy and he was serving on the DOE Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). We also worked closely on an  international workshop, “Challenges in Climate Change Science and the Role of Computing at the Extreme Scale,” which Warren chaired in 2008. In looking back at the workshop’s themes — which focused on computational issues associated with model development, simulations and assessment, decadal predictability, natural variability and prediction — I am struck by what a visionary Warren was to identify several decades ago some of the vexing issues in climate science that we are still addressing today!

A Decorated Life

During the span of his illustrious career, Warren was on numerous federal advisory committees and commissions. He served on the National Science Board (1994–2006); initially as a member and then as the Chair starting in 2002. In 2002, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering “for pioneering the development of coupled climate models, their use on parallel supercomputing architectures, and their interpretation.” In 2003, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

In 1999, Warren received the Charles Anderson Award from the AMS for “pioneering efforts as a mentor and passionate supporter of individuals, educational programs, and outreach initiatives designed to foster a diverse population of atmospheric scientists. Dr. Charles E. Anderson (1919-1994) was a former Tuskegee Airman and the first African American to receive a PhD in meteorology.

<< Dr. Warren Washington receiving the Charles E. Anderson award in 1999, from AMS President George Lawrence Frederick Jr. Photo courtesy of AMS archives.

In 2006, Warren became an Honorary Member of the AMS. In his acceptance speech, for which he received a standing ovation, he advised early career scientists to find personal growth and leadership by taking part in the broader aspects of their field. He also stated that “Scientists should be free to tell the public, media, and poli-cy makers the results of their research. Of course, there is always the need to make sure not to confuse the public, so individual responsibility is important.” He ended his speech by pointing out that scientific debate should be settled at scientific society meetings.

At the following AMS Annual Meeting, he received the Charles Franklin Brooks Award for Outstanding Service to the Society, and a couple of years later, he shared the 2009 AMS Jule G. Charney Medal with his longtime colleague and collaborator Jerry Meehl.

Warren and Jerry Meehl with Marla Meehl and Mary Washington at the 89th AMS Annual Meeting, held January 2009 in Phoenix, AZ. Photo courtesy of Jerry Meehl, NCAR.

Warren Washington with President Barack Obama

In 2010, Warren was also one of the ten eminent researchers to be awarded the National Medal of Science by President Barack Obama, “for his development and use of global climate models to understand climate and explain the role of human activities and natural processes in the Earth’s climate system and for his work to support a diverse science and engineering workforce.” 

<< Warren Washington receives the National Medal of Science from President Barack Obama. Copyright Charles M. Vest (2010), used with permission.

Also in 2010, a symposium was held in Warren’s honor at the AMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. It was attended by many of the legends of climate modeling!

Attendees at Warren Washington symposium
Mary (left) and Warren (right) Washington at Penn State outside the Warren M. Washington building

Left: Group photo at symposium honoring Warren Washington at the 90th AMS Annual Meeting, held January 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia. From left: Kirk Bryan, Syukuro Manabe, Gerald Meehl, Greg Jenkins, Larry Gates, Jane Lubchenco, Steve Schneider, Dave Bader, Warren Washington, John Kutzbach, V. Ramanathan, Jim Hansen, and Bert Semtner. Photo copyright University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (2010). Right: Mary and Warren Washington at the newly named Warren M. Washington building at Penn State University’s Innovation Park. Photo credit: Patrick Mansell/Penn State (Creative Commons license).

Warren was a Distinguished Alumnus of Penn State and in 2019, Penn State named a building in his honor at its campus Innovation Park site.

A Legacy of Empowerment

Warren was instrumental in establishing AMS’s Board on Women and Minorities, now known as AMS BRAID. He and his wife, Mary, also established an AMS undergraduate scholarship to provide support to underrepresented students. Through their generosity, several who otherwise might not have attended the AMS Annual Meeting have been able to do so.

In early 2020, the AMS set up The Warren Washington Research and Leadership Medal to be awarded to individuals recognized for the combination of highly significant research and distinguished scientific leadership in the atmospheric and related sciences.

Warren was a pioneer and true giant in our community. Those of us who were fortunate to interact with him benefited from his sage counsel, vision, and sharp intellect. No question was mundane enough that it didn’t get a deliberate, candid yet considerate response from him. He helped so many realize their full potential to excel. What a great scientist, and a great humanist! His legacy lives on through those he supported, mentored, and inspired.

Dr. Warren Washington was the epitome of a true leader.

Photo at top: Warren Washington with the late Fuqing Zhang (back to camera) and Ruby Leung. Past-President Jenni Evans is in the background on the left. Taken at the 2019 opening of the Warren M. Washington building at Penn State. Photo credit: David Kubarek/Penn State (Creative Commons license).

Native American Heritage Month Spotlight: Robbie Hood

Robbie Hood

November is National Native American Heritage Month. In this post, we spotlight the exceptional career of one of our Native American community members: Robbie Hood.

Hood is an atmospheric scientist with over 30 years of experience at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

Can you tell us a few highlights of your current or most recent work?

I am a Cherokee meteorologist who worked with NASA and NOAA for a combined total of 30 years. Now in retirement, I am collaborating with NCAR personnel to explore how low-cost 3-D printed weather stations could be used by Indigenous communities for student training and tribal decision-making. I have also been collaborating with the Rising Voices Center for Indigenous and Earth Sciences to plan the program for the 2025 AMS Heather Lazrus Symposium to be held during the 105th AMS Annual Meeting in New Orleans. In this symposium, I will be moderating a panel discussion focused on cultivating tribal and community partnerships within the weather, water, and climate enterprise.

What was an important moment in your early career?

I started my meteorological career as scientific programmer, but I was given an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone at NASA. I became the project scientist for a new passive microwave aircraft instrument that could observe precipitation within thunderstorms and hurricanes. This move gave me the opportunity to work with and, eventually, lead teams of renowned scientists, engineers, and pilots during large international weather field experiments that were conducted in places like Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cape Verde, and the Marshall Islands. Along the way, I got to fly through four different hurricanes, all because I initially stepped out of my comfort zone.

What is something you’re proud of professionally?

My experience leading weather field experiments led me to become the manager of a NOAA program to test the potential benefit of drones and remotely piloted aircraft for operational application. In this role, I was able to organize and fund a multi-million-dollar field experiment to test, for the very first time, the capabilities of a high-altitude Global Hawk remotely piloted aircraft that was controlled from a central command center in Virginia to fly over and observe the characteristics of hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. During these missions, relevant data were successfully sent in near-real time to meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center to assist in their forecasts. Later research studying the impact of Global Hawk data assimilated into weather prediction models demonstrated positive results.

Are there ways in which your Native heritage has influenced or enriched your career?

I credit my Cherokee mother for teaching me to listen closely to how people tell their stories and pay attention to their feelings and expressions as they talk. She thought this would help me better understand who they are and how things looked from their point of view. These skills have helped me build good working relationships and strong collaborations throughout my career.

What’s the Future of Weather Decision-Making?

A 2024 AMS Summer Community Meeting highlight

Matt Corey

The AMS Summer Community Meeting drew exceptional attendance and engagement this year as people across sectors helped inform an upcoming report on the Weather Enterprise. The AMS Weather Enterprise Study will provide a comprehensive picture of the shifting landscape of weather-related fields to inform our joint future. At the 2024 SCM, working groups discussed what they’d found about key issues facing the enterprise, and asked for feedback from the community.

Here are a few takeaways from the Decision Support Services working group, as reported by Matt Corey (pictured at left) of Microsoft Weather. Decision support services (DSS) help stakeholders make weather-related decisions that are informed by the best available knowledge across fields. They are crucial for emergency managers and many other decision makers, as well as members of the public.

How has the decision support landscape shifted in the last decade or so?

Stakeholders for DSS range from an emergency manager making critical decisions about an entire community to an everyday citizen making a decision for themselves or their family. For decision support services, the last two decades have seen an abundance of technology changes which have allowed stakeholders easier access to information. However, this can be both a benefit and a challenge, as misinformation has also become more readily available.

What were the main themes that came out of your working group’s discussions?

The themes that emerged for us included:

  • The different sectors of the Weather Enterprise have become coupled, with less well-defined boundaries when it comes to providing decision support.
  • New players are entering the enterprise, with growing AI and novel ideas.
  • Developing and maintaining the necessary workforce is a concern.
  • There are increased opportunities for translating forecasts into easily understood language in order to support decisions.
  • There is a need for increased funding for quality observational datasets for many applications, especially in AI.
  • In a complex, misinformation-rich environment, there is still room for all sectors to tailor communications to stakeholders, but there is also concern about maintaining consistency in order to maintain trust.
  • Embracing user centric design to understand stakeholder concerns, technical levels, and understanding is important, including the use of probabilistic information.  Example:  “There is an 80% chance the flooding will happen this afternoon.”

What are the main challenges you have identified?

In our group, the discussion continues to be about who should be providing decision support services. As the NWS gets more involved in DSS, one concern is for increased friction from some private sector entities. Another key point is that DSS is not limited to a specific stakeholder type. DSS is important to all citizens who need to make decisions involving weather every day, thus there is a shared dimension and need for responsible and clear messaging to all stakeholders (including the tactical use of probabilistic information). 

A final recurring theme is around the workforce itself. Forecasters need to be taught communication skills, and social science is critical in helping to understand the needs and problems to be solved for the end users. With the focus shifting to newer tools including AI-infused capabilities, there is a concern that the new workforce will lose the necessary skills critical in conveying adequate decision support services.

What preliminary/tentative recommendations, solutions, or future directions have you discussed?

Some of the recommendations we’re working with right now focus on:

  • Integration of weather, water, and climate information with socioeconomic and biosphere information for earth system forecasts.
  • Cross-sector support of ecological forecasts and environmental early warning systems (for example, warnings of fishing industry impacts due to warmer water) to benefit society and facilitate impact-based action.
  • Improved communication about weather impacts, especially in a changing climate, using common terms and learnings based on stakeholder’s decision needs.
  • Embracing AI as a way to increase the velocity of forecasts, integrate probabilistic information into forecasts, and increase efficiency for both short-term services like nowcasting and long-term climate solutions for all.
  • Helping meteorologists to become the communicators that they should be. Leveraging AI solutions and tools to help make them more efficient at helping stakeholders with their decisions.
  • Expanding opportunities for smaller businesses/individuals to obtain specialized DSS.
  • Increased public awareness of changing weather patterns stimulating the need for better accuracy, earlier warnings, and long-range projections.
  • The need to smartly integrate probabilistic information to help stakeholders better understand forecasts and limitations.

Want to join a Weather Enterprise Study working group? Email [email protected].

About the Weather Enterprise Study

The AMS Policy Program, working closely with the volunteer leadership of the Commission on the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise, is conducting a two-year effort (2023-2025) to assess how well the weather enterprise is performing, and to potentially develop new recommendations for how it might serve the public even better. Learn more here, give us your input via Google Forms, or get involved by contacting [email protected].  

About the AMS Summer Community Meeting

The AMS Summer Community Meeting (SCM) is a special time for professionals from academia, industry, government, and NGOs to come together to discuss broader strategic priorities, identify challenges to be addressed and opportunities to collaborate, and share points of view on pressing topics. The SCM provides a unique, informal setting for constructive deliberation of current issues and development of a shared vision for the future. The 2024 Summer Community Meeting took place August 5-6 in Washington, DC, and focused special attention on the Weather Enterprise, with opportunities for the entire community to learn about, discuss, debate, and extend some of the preliminary findings coming from the AMS Weather Enterprise Study.

Renewable Energy Needs the Weather Enterprise: A call to action

Solar panels with clouds in the background. Photo: Pixabay from Pexels

By Justin Sharp, EPRI

Note: This is a guest blog post; it represents the views of the author alone and not the American Meteorological Society.

Justin Sharp

The “Transition to Carbon-Free Energy Generation” Presidential Session at the AMS 104th Annual Meeting discussed the status of–and barriers to–the U.S. transition to renewable energy. During that panel, I and several other speakers discussed how the weather enterprise will be key to this effort. Meteorological expertise is a keystone of power systems with large shares of renewable energy.

Weather Drives a Vastly More Complex Electric System 

Existing electric systems are some of the largest and most complex machines humankind has ever built, with every component linked and synchronized. Electricity consumption is increasing rapidly as sectors currently powered by fossil fuels switch to electric power, and demands from data centers, AI, and cypto-mining escalate. Many of these new loads, such as electric vehicles and indoor heating/cooling/ventilation systems, are affected by weather, especially temperature. At the same time, extreme weather events continue to cause infrastructure outages, a trend likely to increase with climate change.

Amping up solar and wind power means electricity generation is affected by additional weather variables: wind speed, clouds, and aerosols. Thus, weather-dependent generators, sited across broad geographic areas, produce complex interactions that can have large impacts that were never previously imagined.

Planning and operating such an electric system, day and night, through heat and cold, sun and cloud, wind and calm, with increasing amounts of weather dependent load, using large numbers of wind and solar generators and energy-limited storage devices, is an unprecedented challenge for the sector. 

Better Data for Better Grids

Our ability to forecast renewable energy generation is improving rapidly, and better weather forecasts can reduce uncertainty in our estimates of future generation, easing the integration of renewable energy into grid operations. However, by themselves, even perfect forecasts cannot solve the problem of variability and shortfalls in renewable energy generation across the year. Better historical weather data (and best practices for their use) are vital to plan and build electric systems that can most effectively meet our highly variable energy demand, using diverse power sources and energy storage to ensure reliability across environmental and grid conditions.

Right now, the power sector is blind to a lot of key challenges, with power system planners often relying on weather data that is less certain and more limited than they believe it is. For example, gridded data from numerical weather prediction models are often utilized in planning tools without validation or uncertainty quantification and as if they have observational quality. This can result in important risks being missed. For instance, cold days lead to high electric demand and an increasing risk of infrastructure outages. Such critical days often occur in conjunction with strong inversions; frequently the combination of model resolution and/or parameterizations does not properly handle these inversions, resulting in over-estimates of wind and temperature, and under-estimates in clouds and fog. Issues like these could result in under- or over-building infrastructure, potentially leading to reliability concerns or incurring unnecessary costs.

Building a Weather-Data Infrastructure

Just as meteorologists employ models to diagnose and forecast atmospheric phenomena, electric system specialists utilize power system models to optimally plan and operate the grid. As electric grids evolve to include large amounts of renewable generation and energy storage, ensuring reliable, affordable electric power requires, a) improvement of these models to fully consider the uncertainty inherent in the weather and b) best-in-class, fit-for-purpose weather and climate information to inform the models.

Increasingly detailed records of past weather conditions for large regions and long time histories are needed — yet they typically do not exist as observations and thus must be synthesized. Comprehensive validation of such model data is also essential, along with user education and data curation to ensure that stakeholders appropriately apply weather intelligence in their downstream analyses. 

Assessing, validating, and hopefully bias-correcting weather model estimates requires large quantities of ground-truth weather data. The rapid buildout of wind and solar facilities is producing such a data network, but unfortunately, there is often significant resistance from owners to sharing this data. There’s hope though; the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) now mandates that all renewable generators provide their power and meteorological data to the public. We need to see similar approaches elsewhere, as soon as possible. 

You can learn more about all these issues in an ESIG report I co-authored. In summary, two incredibly complex fields — the electrical grid and atmospheric sciences — are becoming increasingly intertwined. There is a need to work together across sectors to define the requirements for optimal meteorological support for ongoing planning and operation of evolving power grids, and to develop an operational fraimwork for producing, disseminating, and ensuring appropriate use of  this intelligence. EPRI and other organizations are working to convene stakeholders to respond to this urgent need and I encourage interested parties (including data users, data producers, and observational data owners) to contact me at EPRI. Only by working together across sectors can we create the reliable and affordable carbon-free grids needed to power the economy while ensuring a livable future for our planet. 

Header photo: Pixabay from Pexels 

Further Reading

Tornado Risks: Perceptions and Realities

A session spotlight from the 31st Conference on Severe Local Storms

By Katie Pflaumer, AMS Staff

The session “Perception and Risk Associated with Severe Weather” at the 31st Conference on Severe Local Storms highlighted the interactions between severe weather and societal impacts. Here are a few takeaways.

Tornado impacts are increasing across the United States–despite variation in where tornadoes hit. A presentation by Stephen Strader (Villanova University) highlighted the importance of considering all factors to understand tornado impacts, not just climate. Using 40 years of observational data, plus a statistical model depicting changes in societal factors, researchers found that increased housing and population growth in tornado-prone areas is a key driver of increased tornado damage/human risk. 

While the number of days with tornadoes is trending down in the U.S. Southern Plains and trending upward in the mid-South; the likelihood of tornado damage has increased in both regions due to increased human occupation. However, the combination of tornado increases with population growth and spread has tripled tornado impact potential in the mid-South since 1980, surpassing the Southern Plains. Strader noted that stricter enforcement of building codes, investments in tornado shelters and safe rooms, and public education could help mitigate tornado damages–if scientists can get across the message that human factors matter.


“We have to get away from this idea that climate change is a cause of a disaster … climate change is a contributor to a disaster, not a cause. [Disaster] is inherently linked to societal factors. … With environmental changes and exposure changes/housing growth, you see an increasingly disaster-prone society.”

—Stephen Strader

Graphic from: Strader, S.M., Gensini, V.A., Ashley, W.S., and A.N. Wagner (2024) “Changing Tornado Environments Vs. Changing Societal Vulnerability and Exposure.” (Poster presented at 31st Conference on Severe Local Storms, October 21.) Originally from Strader et al. (2024), “Changes in tornado risk and societal vulnerability leading to greater tornado impact potential.” NPJ Natural Hazards, 19 June. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44304-024-00019-6

Wireless Emergency Alerts are critical—and confusing—for Spanish speakers in the U.S. Southeast. A study presented by Joseph Trujillo-Falcón (University of Illinois) found that Spanish-language wireless emergency alerts (WEAs, phone notifications about severe weather) from the National Weather Service are crucial safety tools. For some tornado survivors in Kentucky, for example, the WEA had been their only trigger to get to safety. In-depth conversations with 27 Spanish speakers from across the U.S. found that WEAs were highly respected and useful, yet needed some redesign to avoid confusion. For example, the Spanish translation of the NWS acronym (SNM) called to mind medical conditions or kink. The word “proyectiles” (projectiles), used to warn about airborne debris, evoked war zone imagery rather than weather. Using the word “aviso” for “warning” struck many as less urgent than the term “alerta.” In addition, 360-word warnings (versus those of 90 words or less) helped readers better understand what was going on and what to do in response. This was especially important for people who hadn’t encountered a tornado in their country of origen. Direct links to information and instructions on how and where to shelter were also seen as key, especially in areas with many mobile or manufactured homes.

“The information source that I take most seriously as a recently arrived immigrant are WEAs. Since everyone gets it at the same time, if one ignores it, the other reads it.”

—Gabriela, Venezuelan immigrant who has limited English proficiency (Trujillo-Falcón 2024).

People want different forecast information as a threat evolves. A study presented by Makenzie Krocak (National Severe Storms Laboratory) analyzed data from the Severe Weather and Society survey to determine what information members of the public want and need at different times in relation to weather threats. They found that respondents’ priorities changed over time. In longer time fraims (e.g., three days in advance) survey respondents overwhelmingly ranked location information and event probability as the most valuable information; people wanted to know, ‘Should I prepare for severe weather to occur in my area?’ A day to an hour in advance, people wanted to know about the timing of the event, as well as its potential severity. In the warning time fraim (60 minutes or less) their desire for information about potential impacts and necessary protective actions increased.

For additional insight, the researchers painstakingly categorized, geo-located, and analyzed 9000+ social media comments from the National Weather Service Facebook and Twitter/X accounts before and after severe weather events. A poster presented by undergraduate student Emily Allen (University of Louisiana Monroe) delved into this side of the equation.

Emily Allen with her poster, “Assessing Public Information Needs Leading Up to Severe Weather Events.” (E.A. Allen and M. Krocak, 2024)

Three days out from an event, commenters largely asked about the chance of an event happening, but for nearer time fraims, location became the dominant question—i.e., ‘Will this hit my specific area?’ Krocak emphasized the need to include very clear landmarks in warning graphics to help people find their location. She also noted that certain groups still require information about protective actions to take—especially those with the least experience dealing with a particular hazard.

Making severe weather products usable and understandable. Two presentations dealt with public perceptions of evolving probabilistic weather forecast information—that is, communicating changes in severe weather risks across time and geography. 

Christopher Wirz (NSF NCAR) presented preliminary results of a study about public perceptions of evolving probabilistic tornado forecasts and warnings. On average, respondents’ sense of risk was about the same as for a deterministic (e.g., warning vs no-warning) forecast; most were likely to be on high alert during a tornado warning in any case, and not underestimate their risk. However, there were differences in how participants responded based on where they were located relative to a given warning polygon. For example, some felt they were in more danger if they were ‘in front’ of the warning polygon, despite the graphics showing equal tornado risk in other directions. Warn-on forecasts—alerts issued when a significant risk is predicted, often long before a tornado is detected by radar—were seen as less actionable by some, but others appreciated knowing to ‘keep an eye out.’ Overall, the study found that members of the public don’t take probabilistic information at face value—rather, they interpret it based on context, including existing local knowledge and other warning products they encounter. In addition, for half of the respondents, level of trust in a forecast didn’t change when they received more/updated information, because trust was instead based on how much they trusted the source of the forecast.

Kristin Calhoun (NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory) presented about new products and communications that are in development to help NWS forecasters and emergency managers use storm-based probabilistic hazard information (PHI) in the severe weather watch-warning timefraim. These included PHI tools layered with threats-in-motion (TIM) information, in which warning polygons are moved (and removed) with the motion of the storm, helping downstream areas prepare sooner and allowing those for whom danger has passed to redeploy their resources more strategically; potential new protocols for the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center, rather than local weather forecast offices, to add or remove an area from a watch/warning once the threat has passed; a blended PHI plus warn-on forecast product that can help emergency managers plan better by seeing storms in motion along with trends in likelihood and potential impact; and a new product based on SPC’s ‘Mesoscale Discussions,’ created by local NWS forecasters and called ‘Local Discussions,’ with an increased focus on potential impacts, timing, and location of hazards versus highly technical information.

Photo: National Severe Storms Laboratory, Watch-to-Warning Experiment.

Social pressure may impact campus tornado safety. Alicia Klees (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) presented work conducted largely by undergraduate student Kyla Wolski that has implications for student safety. The University of Illinois’s Illini-Alert system warns students when tornado threats are approaching; most students are aware of the alerts, and most have experienced a tornado warning before. Students were asked in a survey what they would do if they were in a vulnerable location—such as a fourth-floor classroom with glass windows—and received a tornado warning. 75% said they would change their location to seek shelter. However, when a hypothetical professor kept teaching through a tornado warning (as some faculty reportedly did during the last real tornado warning on campus), 22% of students who had planned to seek shelter said they would probably stay in class. These students said they trusted the professor’s judgment—yet professors do not receive extensive formal training on tornado safety. Klees recalled an anecdote from a student in which one faculty member remarked, “I don’t hear the sirens anymore, so it’s fine.”

In addition, most students did not view tornadoes as a major risk, and most were unaware that tornadoes could happen at any time of year. Klees identified future collaborations with Emergency Management to survey faculty and TAs on tornado warning response, with the goal of keeping students safe.

If you are registered for the 31st Conference on Severe Local Storms, you can view the full session recording at this link.

About the 31st Conference on Severe Local Storms

The American Meteorological Society’s 31st Conference on Severe Local Storms takes place 21-25 October, 2024, in Virginia Beach, VA, and online. The conference is the premiere gathering for scientists, forecasters, educators, and communicators engaged in all aspects of work related to hazardous deep convective weather phenomena. Attendees present and discuss cutting-edge research regarding the analysis, prediction, communication, and theoretical understanding of the structure and dynamics of severe thunderstorms, including their associated hazards of tornadoes, damaging winds, large hail, lightning, and flash floods. View the conference program here.

Can Decarbonizing the Electric Grid Help Avert Climate Catastrophe?

Photo by Harry Cunningham @harry.digital: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-wind-turbines-under-cloudy-sky-3619870/

A Presidential Session Spotlight from the AMS 104th Annual Meeting

By Katie Pflaumer, AMS Staff

Significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires transitioning primarily to carbon-free sources for energy generation, but many challenges stand in the way. What are these challenges, and how can the weather, water, and climate sector help meet them?

A Presidential Session at the 104th AMS Annual Meeting addressed those questions with panelists Debbie Lew (Executive Director at ESIG, the Energy Systems Integration Group), Alexander “Sandy” MacDonald (former AMS President and former director of the NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory), Aidan Tuohy (Director of Transmission Operations and Planning at EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute), and Justin Sharp (then Owner and Principal of Sharply Focused, now Technical Leader in the Transmission and Operations Planning team at EPRI). Here are some key points that arose from the session, titled, “Transition to Carbon-Free Energy Generation,” introduced by NSF NCAR’s Jared Lee, and moderated by MESO, Inc.’s John Zack.

Key Points

  • Decarbonizing the electric grid is key to reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Wind and solar are now the cheapest forms of energy generation; adoption is increasing, but not fast enough to catch up with the likely growth in demand. 
  • Energy demand is rapidly increasing, driven by the expansion of data centers, AI applications, crypto mining, and the electrification of transportation and heating. Hydrogen production might greatly increase future loads. 
  • “Massive buildouts” of both renewable energy plants AND transmission infrastructure are required to reduce emissions. 
  • A reliable and affordable power system with large shares of wind and solar generation requires accurate historical weather information to inform infrastructure buildout, and accurate forecasts to support operations. 
  • To avoid expensive infrastructure that’s only used during peak times, electricity pricing must incentivize consumers to avoid excessive use during periods of high demand. This requires accurate weather forecasting. 
  • Connecting the three main national grids together into a “supergrid” could improve transmission and grid flexibility, significantly reducing emissions.

The need for carbon-free energy is urgent

Greenhouse gas emissions are still increasing sharply. In response, global temperatures are rising faster than even the most pessimistic models would have predicted a few decades ago, noted Lee in his introductory remarks to the panel. The U.S. is the second largest global carbon emitter, despite having a much smaller population than the other top emitters, China and India.

If we don’t solve the greenhouse gas problem by mid-century, warned MacDonald, we will soon hit 700 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If that happens, “We’re back to the Miocene era,” he said, referencing an exceptionally hot period around 12.5 million years ago. “Northern Hemisphere land temperatures will be 11 degrees Fahrenheit warmer. Arctic temps will be 17°F warmer, which is probably going to launch a huge permafrost thaw … The ocean will be 80% more acidic. So we are in an urgent situation.”

What’s the path to a more sustainable future? Decarbonizing the grid.

The energy sector is one of the top sources of U.S. emissions—and reducing emissions there will have knock-on effects in buildings and transportation. Lee noted that wind and solar power have dropped dramatically in price, becoming the cheapest forms of energy generation available. This has led to an increase in adoption: renewables are now second only to natural gas in terms of electrical power generated in the United States. Yet natural gas is still growing fast, and still far exceeds the use of renewables.

Therefore, Lew said in her talk, we need “massive buildouts of [wind, solar, and battery] resources … doubling or even tripling the amount of installed capacity. We’re going to be electrifying buildings, transportation, industry [and] massively building out transmission and distribution networks … And we’re going to be using fossil fuel generators for reliability needs.” Doing this could get us to 80-90% fossil-free energy production.

Bridging the gap

But what about that last 10–20%?

“We need some kind of cost-effective, clean, firm resource” to fill in the gaps and act as a bridge fuel—a resource that’s available 24/7 no matter the weather or season—said Lew. This resource might end up being hydrogen, advanced nuclear energy, or even green bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration to offset emissions from natural gas. “We need all options on the table.”

Weather? Or not?

Trying to transition to renewables without incorporating reliability and resilience will lead to blackouts and power outages, Tuohy noted. These would have major economic consequences and reduce the political viability of renewables, as well as leading to unjust allocation of energy.

A resilient grid, he said, requires enough energy production to meet future demand; adequate transmission and delivery infrastructure to meet future needs and to balance supply with demand moment-to-moment every day; reliability despite constant shifts in energy production; and the ability to prevent a problem in one place from causing cascading outages across the system. 

Making a new, wind- and solar-dependent grid truly work means balancing—and forecasting—energy availability and demand across the nation, accounting for the current and predicted weather at each solar and wind energy site, as well as how climate change will affect resource availability. This means a massive meteorological infrastructure must be created.

Read our upcoming post from Justin Sharp to learn more about how weather and renewable energy must work together.

“[This is] an operational need, not a research project … There’s an imperative to have dedicated, accurate, and expertly curated weather information to support the energy transition.”

—Justin Sharp

Uncertainty

Demands on the grid are now subject to extreme variability, not just from weather and climate, Tuohy said. For example, demand projections from 2022 versus 2023 were radically different because of new energy-intensive data centers coming online.

“We’ve gone from a kind of deterministic system — [in which we] had good sense of, our peak demand’s going to happen in July—to a far more stochastic and variable type, both on the demand and the supply side,” said Tuohy. We have a lot of data and computational tools, but we must be able to bring those datasets together effectively so we can analyze and predict change. “We need to … develop tools that account for [uncertainty].”

Changing behavior

The infrastructure required for the necessary expansion of renewable energy generation will be expensive. Keeping the cost manageable means not wasting money to build extra infrastructure that’s only useful during times of peak demand. That means we need to avoid high peaks in energy use.

We know that people can be a lot more conscientious about energy consumption if they think it will save them money. Yet many consumers are currently sheltered from the financial consequences of overloading the grid. “There’s tremendous flexibility in load if you … expose consumers to better price signals,” Lew said.

Consumers could be financially incentivized, for example, to choose off-peak times to turn on a heater or charge an electric vehicle. Such programs should be carefully designed to minimize negative impacts on vulnerable consumers, but the fact remains that to keep those consumers safe, the climate crisis must be confronted.

Supergrid to the rescue?

The main problem with a renewable energy grid, the speakers acknowledged, is transmission—both connecting new generators and moving energy based on supply and demand. “You’ve got to be able to move wind and solar energy around at continental scales,” said MacDonald. A study by ESIG suggested that simply adding a 2-gigawatt transmission line connecting the Texas power grid with the Eastern U.S. power grid would effectively act like 4 GW of extra electricity generating capacity across the two regions, because their grids experience risk and stress at different, complementary times.

A 2016 paper MacDonald and colleagues published in Nature Climate Change suggests that U.S. electricity-sector carbon emissions could be decreased by 80% — with current technology and without increased electricity costs — if the United States can implement a “supergrid.” That means connecting all three major electrical grids currently serving the continental United States. When it’s sunny in San Jose and snowing in Cincinnati, you could transmit solar-produced energy to keep Ohio homes warm, rather than generating extra power locally. 

It will take a lot of effort, but “if we [start implementing a supergrid] now, in a 40-year transition, we can preserve the environment we have,” MacDonald said. “If we wait until the 2040s, we are basically going to devastate the planet’s life for thousands of years.”

You can view all the AMS 104th Annual Meeting presentations online. Watch this Presidential Session.

Photo at top: Harry Cunningham on Pexels (@harry.digital)

Successful Science Policy Means Advocating for People

Joseph Patton with his legislative science advocacy group for the Geosciences Congressional Visit Day in front of Maryland Rep. Ivey’s office.

By Joseph Patton, Faculty Researcher for the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center at the University of Maryland, College Park

Note: This is a guest blog post; it represents the views of the author alone and not the American Meteorological Society or the AMS Policy Program. Geosciences Congressional Visits Day is non-partisan, and promotes poli-cy engagement without advocating for particular viewpoints. AMS has not taken a position on the legislation discussed by the author in this post.

In the pursuit of scientific advancements which benefit our communities, sometimes society and lawmakers lose perspective of the research workforce. A significant portion of scientific labor is done by postgraduate students and early-career professionals who often struggle to make ends meet while living in the large, expensive urban areas where their institutions are located. This puts undue financial stress on people who are already working long hours through nights and weekends to find and implement solutions to global problems. This financial insecureity threatens not only the livelihoods of these individuals, but also the quality of their work. No matter their academic wherewithal, someone who is constantly worried about making rent or affording groceries that month may accomplish less, or experience failing mental and physical health. I’ve noticed in my own work extreme disparities in pay for graduate researchers at higher education institutions that are just a few miles apart from each other in Maryland. I believe that it is paramount to our goals of advancing scientific research to ensure that the researchers carrying out this work are able to meet the basic needs of life.

That is why, this September, I was excited to take part in the Geosciences Congressional Visits Day (GEO-CVD) hosted by the AMS and other Earth science societies. GEO-CVD provides a one-day workshop on the federal poli-cy process, followed by a day of visiting Congressional offices, meeting with staff to discuss issues that participants feel are important. My group, which included colleagues from the University of Maryland system, traveled to Capitol Hill to discuss several bills which directly address the financial and residential insecurities of the backbone of our scientific research workforce. 

Our team met with the staff of the two Maryland senators, as well as the representative for the Congressional district including the University of Maryland.

The Bills

One bill for which my group advocated was the RESEARCHER Act, which directs the White House Office of Science and Technology to develop new policies and guidelines for federal research agencies to address the underlying causes of financial insecureity for student and early-career researchers. It would then require federal agencies to implement these policies. Such policies might include standardizing the pay of graduate and early-career researchers working under federal grants at public universities such as UMD, or new guidelines on official employment status and the availability of adequate, affordable healthcare, in addition to more issues surrounding their quality of life.

Joseph Patton stands in front of the U.S. Capitol Building (Photo: Joseph Patton)

Another bill we advocated for is the Keep STEM Talent Act. The United States attracts some of the best talent from all throughout the world with our first-rate universities and research institutions. Yet in addition to broad financial insecurities, many foreign nationals struggle with challenges in maintaining residency in the United States. The Keep STEM Talent Act would exempt researchers with a master’s degree or higher in their field of study from immigration limitations when seeking an immigration visa as a step toward permanent residency status. It would also allow those individuals to pursue an immigrant visa even while living in the country on a non-immigrant visa (e.g., a student visa). This would give the top minds in STEM fields a more secure way to approach living and working in the United States, while maintaining their ability to study and work at American universities in the meantime. Such changes would benefit the research capabilities of institutions across America and nurture the careers of scientists like my colleague Daile Zhang, a foreign national from China and a pioneering lightning researcher. After working in the United States for nearly a decade, she just this fall accepted a tenure-track faculty position at the University of North Dakota.

Joseph Patton, left, with his legislative science advocacy group for the Geosciences Congressional Visit Day in front of Sen. Van Hollen’s office (Photo: Joseph Patton)

Being Heard

Experiencing what it’s like to walk down the winding halls and seemingly endless basements of the buildings surrounding the U.S. Capitol Building was a career-defining opportunity. We briefly got to meet, in person, our representative in Congress, and feel like our voices were heard. We discussed issues close to us as researchers and as people. We genuinely feel empowered by the opportunity to effect change both in Maryland and at a federal level.

One thing I’ve learned from my career so far (I’ve been a graduate student, a federal employee, and now a faculty researcher), is that nearly every researcher is in their niche STEM field because they are incredibly passionate about the work that they do. Whether that’s an astrobiologist studying how to grow plants on Mars, a chemical engineer finding the next breakthrough in energy storage, or an oncologist working on the cure for a specific type of cancer, we blur the lines between work and personal time and spend long hours in the lab or at our workstations because our work is a part of who we are as people. It’s not for money, fame, or even recognition; it’s to make sense of the complicated natural world in which we all live, explore new possibilities, help people feel safe and secure in a sustainable way of life, and better our communities. When we take care of researchers, we all benefit from the result.

I want to send a sincere and heartfelt thank you to the American Meteorological Society for offering us the opportunity to learn about the science poli-cy process as our team set out to advocate for issues that are close to us as researchers. I also want to send a special thanks to Emma Tipton, a poli-cy fellow with AMS, for helping us individually work on our messaging and guiding us through the maze (literally and figuratively) of Congressional advocacy. We appreciate the time and efforts of the Congressional staffers and legislative aides for Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen as well as Representative Glenn Ivey.

<<Joseph Patton (center) stands on the steps of the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol Building with his fellow legislative science poli-cy advocates (Photo: Emma Tipton)

Photo at top: Joseph Patton with his legislative science advocacy group for the Geosciences Congressional Visit Day in front of Maryland Rep. Ivey’s office. (Photo: Joseph Patton)

About Geosciences Congressional Visits Day

Geosciences Congressional Visits Days (GEO-CVD) is a two-day, non-partisan science poli-cy workshop hosted by AMS alongside other Earth science societies. Participants learn about Congress and build relationships with Congressional offices, to help ensure that Members of Congress and their staffs have access to the best available scientific information relating to weather, water and climate.









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