AMS Policy Program

07/26/2016

Looks like an interesting effort:

"For climate scientists, numerical models are the tools of the trade. But for the layperson — and even for scientists in other fields — climate models can seem mysterious. What does “numerical” even mean? Do climate models take other things besides the atmosphere into account? How do scientists know if a model is any good?

Two experts in climate modeling, Andrew Gettelman of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Richard Rood of the University of Michigan, have your answers and more, free of charge. In a new open-access book, Demystifying Climate Models, the pair lay out the fundamentals. In 282 pages, the scientists explain the basics of climate science, how that science is translated into a climate model, and what those models can tell us (as well as what they can’t) — all without using a single equation."

http://www.popsci.com/all-questions-you-had-about-climate-models-but-were-afraid-to-ask

07/19/2016

Save the date!

September 27-28, 2016: Workshop focusing on East Coast and Great Lakes

October 18-19, 2016: Workshop focusing on West Coast and Gulf Coast

The AMS Policy Program is pleased to announce the dates for two upcoming workshops on water information and management needs for coastal resilience. These workshops are part of a broader study on integrated water prediction, risk assessment, and management for coastal resilience.

07/06/2016

August is a great time to meet with your Members of Congress in your own state. Members tend to have more free time in August, and you're more likely to get a face-to-face meeting. AGU is offering a policy update and advice on arranging District Visits through a webinar this Thursday!

Share the value and wonder of science with your legislators–right in your home state. In 2016, Members of Congress will be in their home states from mid-July through the end of August, making…

06/23/2016

An interesting article on public trust in science:

"The mistake, then, is to believe that the educational credentials you get today give you any special authority on truth. What you have gained is far more important: an understanding of what real truth-seeking looks like. It is the effort not of a single person but of a group of people—the bigger the better—pursuing ideas with curiosity, inquisitiveness, openness, and discipline. As scientists, in other words.

Even more than what you think, how you think matters."

Science has never been more powerful, but it is under attack.

06/16/2016

Jeff Foust at Space News wrote an article based on our May 25th briefing:

http://www.spacenewsmag.com/foust-forward/more-satellite-spectrum-struggles/

The space industry is used to battles over radiofrequency spectrum. Usually they play out on the international stage, such as at last year’s World Radio

03/28/2016

""How do we get the models good enough that we can warn the public based on them?" Snook asks. "That's the ultimate goal of what we want to do -- get to the point where we can make hail forecasts two hours in advance. 'A storm is likely to move into downtown Dallas, now is a good time to act.'"

With such a system in place, it might be possible to prevent injuries to vulnerable people, divert or move planes into hangers and protect cars and other property."

Researchers working on the Severe Hail Analysis, Representation and Prediction (SHARP) project at University of Oklahoma used the Stampede supercomputer to gain a better understanding of the conditions that cause severe hail to form, and to produce hail forecasts with far greater accuracy than those…

11/16/2015

What a fabulous new resource. Fascinating potential use by historians trying to match climatological conditions with social/political/economic trends and events - think about the current analyses of drought factoring into the Syria situation.

The long history of severe droughts across Europe and the Mediterranean has largely been told through historical documents and ancient journals, each chronicling the impact in a geographically restricted area. Now, for the first time, an atlas based on scientific evidence provides the big picture, u…

11/10/2015

A nice write-up of our recent joint Capitol Hill Briefing, with insights from the scientists who participated.

As many of our readers know, COMPASS works with scientists to help them share their work with the wider world – especially journalists and policymakers. Last week, COMPASS worked with the American Meteorological Society to bring four researchers to Capitol Hill to talk about the role of natural infr…

10/16/2015

"The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Geosciences, The Weather Channel and NBC Learn today released an original video series that explores the science of natural disasters to avert their human and economic toll. The 10-part series, "When Nature Strikes: Science of Natural Hazards," spotlights fundamental scientific research that NSF funds to improve predictability and risk assessment that will reduce impacts from catastrophic events."

Narrated by AMS's own Dr. Marshall Shepherd, Host of WxGeeks, 2013 AMS President

NSF's mission is to advance the progress of science, a mission accomplished by funding proposals for research and education made by scientists, engineers, and educators from across the country.

10/08/2015

"An awful number of the seminars about communicating science are about how to make your work intelligible to an ordinary person, how to simplify terminology to make it understandable to a normal person, or highlighting the wow factor of some science, like landing on a comet or manipulating atoms one at a time. What’s missing there is helping people understand that they too can think like a scientist, that they too can practice these techniques of evidentiary thinking, of evidence-based thinking."

Publication date: 6 October 2015Number: 127 On September 29, Rush Holt, the Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and former U.S. Representative, spoke during an interview about the state of science in the U.S., how to communicate science to the pu…

10/02/2015

One of the reasons the NASA Earth Sciences Division is incredibly important.

How the space agency's unlikely partnership with USAID is helping combat poverty on the ground.

09/25/2015

An interesting look at the evolution of our understanding of climate change and its impacts.

In this peculiar history, the main actors are committees and no seminal papers or scientific giants emerge. Seat-of-the-pants guesses made in the 1960s proved to be roughly correct, and the details are still being fleshed out today.