BAMOS
Mar 2020
The highlight of the week for me was the Python Symposium.
I’ve been to “PyCon” conferences in the past and lamented the
fact that such events aren’t on the radar for most academics.
The AMS Committee on Environmental Information Processing
Technologies essentially brings PyCon to academia, and the
specific focus on the analysis of weather and climate data
makes it a great learning experience. As our datasets get larger
and our computing resources more complex, the pressure is on
to train, prepare and upskill the “physical data scientists” of the
future. Talks on artificial intelligence and machine learning were
littered throughout the conference program, although in some
sense it still feels like a solution looking for a problem in the
weather/climate space.
There were a number of initiatives at the AMS Annual
Meeting that might be worth thinking about for future AMOS
conferences. For instance, the AMS has recently launched
a podcast. Throughout the conference, the podcast hosts
interviewed (in front of a live audience) many of the keynote
speakers and notable attendees. I found myself listening to a
couple of these short interviews at the end of each day to help
figure out which keynotes to attend later in the week. There’s
also an alumni evening where universities host get‑togethers
for past and present students and staff, and recordings of the
conference talks are posted online for the benefit of those who
can’t make it along.
The biggest disappointment for me was the climate‑related
content at the conference. Given that the submission deadline
for papers to be included in the Second Order Draft of the IPCC
Sixth Assessment Report was 31 December, I was expecting
many more talks and posters presenting new results from
CMIP6. A possible explanation for gaps in the program like this
is that not all AMS Boards and Committees elect to hold their
annual get together/s at the Annual Meeting.
Having now completed the trifecta, my overall impression from
the big three US conferences is that while the AMS Annual
Meeting and Ocean Sciences are clearly the premier events
for meteorologists and oceanographers respectively, climate
science is a little lost in the middle. This possibly isn’t surprising
given the interconnected nature of the climate system, but it
makes it difficult when planning/justifying a trip overseas.
Exhibition Hall at the AMS Annual Meeting, Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. A line
is already forming for free copies of the 2020 NASA wall calendar! Source: Damien Irving
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