Minutes of the AMS Satellite Meteorology, Oceanography, and Climatology Committee Meeting in Vienna September 19, 2013

AMS Satellite Meteorology, Oceanography, and Climatology Committee

Meeting Summary

 

1.           Meeting Participants:  The following people participated in the AMS Satellite Meteorology, Oceanography and Climatology (SatMOC) Committee meeting held on Thursday, September 19, 2013, 12:30 -1:40 p.m. (CEST), in conjunction with the Joint EUMETSAT/19th AMS Satellite Meteorology Conference, in Vienna, Austria.

 

NAME

ORGANIZATION

E-MAIL

Steve Ackerman

University of Wisconsin

[email protected]

Phil Ardanuy

Raytheon

[email protected]

Ken Carey

Earth Resources Technology, Inc.

[email protected]

Jordan Gerth

University of Wisconsin

[email protected]

Mitch Goldberg

NOAA/NESDIS/JPSS

[email protected]

Pat Kablick

University of Maryland

[email protected]

Shaima Nasiri

Texas A&M

[email protected]

Dr. Rolf Stuhlmann

EUMETSAT

[email protected]

Chris Velden

University of Wisconsin

[email protected]

Jianglong Zhang

University of North Dakota

[email protected]

 

2.           Agenda: 

 

·      Welcome/Opening Remarks (Ken)

·      Committee Member News (Ken)

·      Discuss our Goal/Focus Areas for 2013 (ALL)

o   Promote and support involvement and engagement by AMS members in national and international satellite meteorology, oceanography and climatology meetings, events, and activities

1)      Joint 2013 EUMETSAT-19th AMS Conference (Chris Velden, Mitch Goldberg, Fuzhong Weng, Shaima Nasiri, Ken Carey, Jianglong Zhang, Derek Posselt, Steve Ackerman, Carol Anne Clayson)

2)      SatMOC Joint Session at the 2014 AMS Annual Meeting (Mitch Goldberg, Ken Carey, Chris Velden, Song Yang, Steve Ackerman)

3)      20th AMS SatMet Meeting at the 2015 AMS Annual Meeting (Mitch Goldberg, Ken Carey, Chris Velden, Song Yang, Steve Ackerman, Shaima Nasiri)

4)      2nd Joint Asia/AMS-21st AMS Satellite Meteorology Conference as part of the 6th Asia-Oceania Satellite Meteorology Users' Conference (Ken Carey, Song Yang)

o   Support awareness of satellite meteorology, oceanography and climatology issues and activities through the AMS committee web portal (Justin Tsu, Ken Carey, Derek Posselt)

o   Promote excellence in satellite meteorology, oceanography and climatology by supporting awards to recognize extraordinary people (James Yoe and Jianglong Zhang)

o   Advocate for science-based decisions related to or involving satellite meteorology, oceanography and climatology systems, techniques, products and tools (Carol Anne Clayson)

·      Identify next steps (Ken)

 

3.           Discussion Highlights: 

·      Ken welcomed and thanked everyone who helped organize this joint meeting; he was quite impressed by the interactions here.  He thanked everyone on the organizing committee for doing a great job.

·      Unfortunately, Carol, Fuzhong, and Derek were in Vienna but could not make our committee meeting.  Mike Johnson and Justin Tsu were not in Vienna.

·      Ken asked for individual meeting highlights of the EUMETSAT-AMS joint meeting:

  • Mitch Goldberg was disappointed that there could not be more NOAA participates, but was delighted by the panel and joint discussions about European, United States interactions.  Mitch said there would be a town-hall meeting on the use of direct broadcast of data at the upcoming annual meeting in Atlanta.
  • Shaima was concerned that there may not be a value-added in continuing with a joint meeting.
  • Rolf said that he was interested in the cooperation.  For the new instruments specifically, the operational nowcasters are getting interested in the data.
  • Jianglong was impressed by the logistics and seeing the research undertaken by his European colleagues.
  • Phil enjoyed the synergy.  He said it was very powerful.  Learning about the breadth of the EUMETSAT instruments makes Phil envious.
  • Chris is inspired where we are, and the parallel efforts between the United States and Europe.
  • Steve enjoyed the 15-minute talks.
  • Ken said that we are in a people business.  He is in a position where he gets to work with a lot of smart people.  It is good for him to raise his level of scientific understanding.  Ken hopes to continue the user benefits panel.
  • Pat said the session he helped organize was great.  There were a lot of highlights for data access.

·      We have corrected all of the inaccuracies on the roster.

·      Ken thanked Shaima for an outstanding job leading the committee efforts in selecting FSU PhD Candidate Josh Cossuth as our AMS travel grant winner; there were 6 very good candidates from which to select

·      Justin Tsu has been updating the web site.  We will continue to work on that to ensure the web site is current and updated.

·      The committee recognized Joe Schmetz for his years of service at the conference banquet.  Ken mentioned that the committee should continue to recognize people within the community who are worthy of award.  Phil Ardanuy stated that Steve Miller is worthy for his work on bioluminescence and airglow.  Phil said that for the Remote Sensing Prize, the nominee may come from the radar committee, and there is no guarantee that the nominee will be selected.

·      Chris raised an issue to start planning for a joint meeting in 2016.  We need to determine the number of European and United States participants depending on whether it is held in North America or Europe.  An idea to combine it with the GOES Users’ Conference was raised.  There has to be some thought in blending a technical conference and a users’ conference.

·      We are going to repeat the satellite benefits session.  Research to operations was partially killed off.  They were concerned about this proliferation of conferences that started popping up.  The objective is to work under an existing program.

·      There was more discussion about research to operations, and what constituted a good research to operations talk.  Mitch suggested having only invited sessions in research to operations.

·      In 2015, we will go back for a full-fledged conference at the AMS annual meeting. D. Posselt and P. Kablick expressed interest in serving as co-chairs.

·      The first AMS-Asia conference was held in New Orleans.  The idea was to have a second one at some point in Asia.  The thought was to talk to Jim Purdom.  AOSMUC rotates between China, Japan, and other countries.  Mitch says that the AOSMUC is not a users’ conference how it is perceived.

·      Mitch recommended holding the 2016 meeting in Hawaii due to the launch of Himawari and GOES-R.  Others thought that West Coast destinations are more ideal due to the optics of a meeting in Honolulu.

·      Mitch recommended talking to Greg Mandt about the “Comments Sought on User Impact for Sharing of Meteorological Satellite Spectrum with Commercial Broadband Wireless by FCC”.

·      At our next quarterly meeting, Ken asked for a thought on the 2015 meeting.

·      The AMS has a statement pending review on Full and Open Access to Data.  Steve Ackerman sent a link and asked everyone to review it.

·      Ken asked for nominees to co-chair the 2015 Satellite Meteorology Conference in January 2015; Pat volunteered

·      Awards:

  • Need to stay ahead of the deadlines in order to solicit/encourage good candidates.
  • Ken asked the committee to consider nominees for a committee-level award, a Remote Sensing Prize nominee, and also candidates for Fellow from our field.  Both need to be done by 1 May.  Three strong letters of recommendation is the most important part of a Remote Sensing Prize nomination.
  • The Remote Sensing Prize alternates between satellite and radar.  We need to go through a second committee to award someone the Remote Sensing Prize.  The satellite committee as a whole.  Even if we nominate from our committee, we are competing with other nominations.  They will not win if they do not get submitted.

·      Next full SatMOC Committee meeting will be held in conjunction with the February 2014 AMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA.

 

4.           Action Item Carried Over: 

·      All:  For the committee web site, please provide your feedback to Justin on our committee web pages, especially providing him committee activities, events, news and announcements. 

 

5.           New Action Items: 

·      All:  Consider a committee-level award and a Remote Sensing Prize nominee.  Both need to be done by 1 May 2014.  Three strong letters of recommendation is the most important part of a Remote Sensing Prize nomination.

·      Ken:  Reach out to Gary McWilliams and Lars Peter Riischojgaard on a joint Satellite Meteorology Conference in 2015 (that would include both the 11GOESJPSS Conference and 3rd JCSDA Symposium)

·      All:  Provided your feedback to Steve Ackerman on the AMS statement pending review on Full and Open Access to Data.

·      Rolf:  Provide the committee EUMETSAT’s initial thoughts on a possible joint meeting in the US in 2019.

·      Ken: Request feedback from Greg Mandt about the “Comments Sought on User Impact for Sharing of Meteorological Satellite Spectrum with Commercial Broadband Wireless by FCC”.