AMS 2025: CPAESS Thrives Across Disciplines
Program Specialist Kate Rodd & Assistant Director Tracey Baldwin prepping for the students to swarm the CPAESS table at the AMS Early Career Fair.
The American Meteorological Society held its 105th Annual Meeting from January 12-16, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year’s theme was “Towards a Thriving Planet: Charting the Course Across Scales.” Of the theme, AMS states “Society today is facing pressing global environmental change that is manifesting across spatial and temporal scales in complex ways in the coupled Earth System. Extreme weather events such as heat waves, floods, and wildfires are likely to exacerbate impacts on regional and local spatial scales (AMS).” A week after we all enjoyed New Orleans, Bourbon Street found itself covered in historic snow, so the theme was more than apropos.
Each annual AMS begins the weekend before with numerous activities during the Annual Student Conference. This event helps undergraduate and graduate students to broaden their horizons, cultivate new skills, hear from leaders in the weather and climate sciences, and network with fellow students and professionals. Students participate in workshops to help their professional development and attend the Graduate School and Career Fair and the Student Conference Poster Session. CPAESS always has a table at this Career Fair and this year it was run by Kate Rodd, Tracey Baldwin, and Dawn Mullally. We had a great time at table 50 chatting it up with students and connecting them to helpful opportunities with CPAESS and other UCAR | NCAR internships and programs.
CPAESS social scientist Dr. Kim Klockow McClain who works at NOAA's National Center for Environmental Prediction speaks on how to apply social science to research to increase public understanding of weather threats.
CPAESS staff contributed to this through numerous presentations, a town hall, and a poster. Our town hall was for the Third Decadal U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan and hosted by Rebekah Stein, CPAESS Program Specialist II for the U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program (U.S. CSSP); and former NOAA Climate & Global Change fellow Abhishek Chatterjee now of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The U.S. CSSP is a community-focused program with a research portfolio that encompasses carbon and pertinent biogeochemical cycles across land, water, air, and society. Over the last three decades, the U.S. CCSP has led and coordinated community input from the U.S. and the international carbon cycle community and captured them in two seminal U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plans (1999, 2011). They are now embarking on developing an updated, new science plan for U.S. Carbon Cycle Science, identifying challenges and priorities for the next decade (~2025-2035) with input from the Earth system science community.
CPAESS social scientist Dr. Kim Klockow McClain who works at NOAA's National Center for Environmental Prediction was on a couple of panels, both the Twisters panel and “The Growth and Vision of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences in the NWS.” In addition to giving an oral presentation on “Contemporary Practices and Guidance for Communicating Probabilty Information.” Kim’s uniquely important niche translating research science so that it is highly usable and better understood by the public, has garnered her a following of younger scientists who were easily found during her presentations excited to mirror their careers after hers.
CPAESS Program Specialist Kate Rodd meets up with Arianna Varuolo-Clarke, NOAA Climate & Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow.
CPAESS staff also gave numerous presentations at the AMS with topics ranging from “Oxygenated Organic Aerosols in Munich: Molecular Characterization, Seasonal Variability, and Influence of Biomass Burning” by NASA Jack Eddy Postdoctoral Fellow Yaowei Li; to “Postprocessing Subseasonal Ensemble Rainfall Forecasts in the Pacific Islands Using Process-Informed and Statistical Techniques” with Katie Kowal, CPAESS Associate Scientist who works with the NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC); to Mike Mueller, CPAESS Project Scientist at NOAA Quantitative Observing System Assessment Program (QOSAP) on the “Impact of NOAA's CyGNSS Surface Windspeed Dataset on Forecasts from NCEP's Global Forecast System.” Allie Branson, CPAESS Scientist at the National Hurricane Center presented on “An Analysis of Recent P-Surge Performance Relative to a Historical Average;” Joseph Knisely, NOAA WINGS fellow shared “Advancing Methodologies for Uninterruped, Basin-Wide Data Assismilation in the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System (HAFS);” and Sean Casey, CPAESS Project Scientist at QOSAP discussed “Utilizing Version 17 of the Global Forecast System for Observing System Simulation Experiments.” The effervescent educator, Arianna Varuolo-Clarke, current NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow presented a poster on “Disentangling Warming and Circulation Influences on Winter Precipitation Using Nudging Experiments.”
SPS | CPAESS Deputy Director Cindy Bruyère, CPAESS Associate Scientist at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center Katie Kowal, and SPS | CPAESS Director Hanne Mauriello at the CPAESS Staff Luncheon at AMS 2025.
We went to as many presentations as we could, and they did not disappoint. Your research and contributions to your varied fields are impressive and appreciated. These talks represented a wide range of Earth system science fields and explored many innovations. Please check them out here.
On Monday, UCAR hosted a fabulous reception on a New Orleans riverboat on the Mississippi River. This was a great success and included a short boat ride under a beautifully lit bridge, along with food, drinks, and comradery. Staff, university members, and UCAR | NCAR friends had a wonderful time. It was a conference party with attendance maxed out and everyone enjoying themselves immensely.
A wonderful surprise this year was a CPAESS Staff Lunch. On Wednesday, CPAESS hosted a fabulous lunch at Drago’s in the Hilton. Hanne opened up the event with comments introducing and unifying our staff members who work across the U.S. at a variety of locations. The food was delicious, and the comradery and chance to connect with co-workers in related fields was fantastic.
Interspersed among our many science sharing sessions by staff, SPS | CPAESS Director Hanne Mauriello and SPS | CPAESS Deputy Director Cindy Bruyère met with our numerous sponsors. As development never sleeps, they worked hard to meet and discuss future plans with as many current and future partners as possible. Hanne and Cindy also attended a UCAR AMS Luncheon for scholarship and fellowship recipients on Thursday.
Lastly, CPAESS helped with the UCAR | NCAR Exhibit Booth sharing our many opportunities with early career students, educators, and the curious. We had a great time working with the other programs and labs in our organization sharing the many and diverse opportunities our organization has for the Earth system science community.
Left to Right: CPAESS Scientists Zewdu Segele, Project Scientist, NOAA Climate Prediction Center; David Benson, Program Specialist at the NOAA Climate Program Office; Neil Jacobs, Chief Scientific Advisor and AMS Fellow Awardee; SPS | CPAESS Deputy Director Cindy Bruyere, and Mike Mueller, Project Scientist at NOAA Quantitative Observing System Assessment Program.
Left to Right: Graham Taylor, CPAESS Postdoctoral Researcher at GFDL; SPS | CPAESS Director Hanne Mauriello; Laura Balotin, Program Specialist at NOAA Climate Program Office; Katie Kowal, Associate Scientist at Climate Program Office; and Samantha Wills, Program Specialist at NOAA Climate Program Office.
