Strategic Guidance for the National Science Foundation's Support of the Atmospheric Sciences (2007) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 The Changing Context for Atmospheric Science
3 The Changing Context for Atmospheric Science
Pages 71-100
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 71... ...
New subdisciplines of atmospheric science have emerged, such as climate change and atmospheric chemistry, which grew out of an increased awareness of air pollution. The number and size of university atmospheric science programs has increased by nearly a factor of five, indicative of a more comprehensive and richer research endeavor.
|
From page 72... ...
that presented the scientific rationale for the establishment of a large national atmospheric sciences research center focuses on atmospheric physics topics relevant to meteorology, balanced by a recognition of cross-disciplinary research avenues such as aeronomy, atmospheric chemistry, and the possible impact of atomic weapons detonations on the atmosphere's electrical structure. Basic and applied research in meteorology over the past several decades has contributed to remarkable advances in knowledge of the atmosphere, discoveries of relevance to scientific inquiry more broadly (e.g., the discovery of chaos theory, as described in Box 3-1)
|
From page 73... ...
As scientific information and understanding have deepened on topics such as atmospheric pollution and climate change, there has been a far deeper appreciation of the policy relevance of atmospheric science for societal decision making (e.g., Box 3-2)
|
From page 74... ...
As the 20th century closed, the content and context of the atmospheric sciences had expanded dramatically. In addition to discussing the major issues facing meteorology, the NRC's report The Atmospheric Sciences -- Entering the Twenty-First Century (NRC, 1998b)
|
From page 75... ...
The central role of the atmospheric sciences in the addressing challenges of global environmental change was also addressed in a massive 1999 NRC report Global Enironmental Change -- Research Pathways for the Next Decade (NRC, 1999b)
|
From page 76... ...
NSF funding for atmospheric sciences was $16.3 million (in constant 1996 dollars) in 1958, increasing to $53.9 million in 1959.
|
From page 77... ...
THE CHANGING CONTEXT FOR ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE in Pasadena, California, where he had recently started a new department in Geochemistry. I became his first postdoctoral fellow." "With Professor Brown's consent, I postponed the study of uranium in granite and set about building a device to equilibrate water with a closed air supply.
|
From page 78... ...
Many of the advances in the atmospheric sciences have been enabled by the availability of sophisticated, and expensive, facilities. These include supercomputers, research aircraft, and high-power radar systems, so it is not surprising that during the last 30 years, the fraction of ATM funding devoted to facilities has grown from 23 to 33 percent of its budget.
|
From page 79... ...
will be made in the framework of ATM's strategic planning and with input from the broad atmospheric sciences community. Other agencies have experienced much larger fluctuations in their extramural funding for atmospheric science.
|
From page 80... ...
At the time, only about 10 to 15 doctorates were awarded each year. By the late 1970s, an average of 84 doctorates a year was awarded by a greatly expanded number of university atmospheric sciences departments in the United States, meeting
|
From page 81... ...
ATM supports research in all of these academic enclaves. Along with efforts to increase the size of the atmospheric sciences workforce, the meteorological community has worked to make the production and communication of weather information more professional (NRC, 2003b)
|
From page 82... ...
. In the late 1950s, atmospheric science, space physics, and aeronomy were all grouped into a meteorology section.
|
From page 83... ...
. As in most scientific fields, the number of women and minorities in the atmospheric sciences has increased over the past decades, although there is room for further improvement.
|
From page 84... ...
Atmospheric science attracts fewer minorities than physics and the other Earth sciences with which the field competes in recruiting applicants from the existing science student pool, perhaps because students are more likely to be exposed to physics, chemistry, and biology in their high school education (e.g., Barstow and Geary, 2002)
|
From page 85... ...
Atmospheric sciences could increase its efforts in competing more effectively against physics and the other Earth sciences in recruiting students from the existing science student pool, using models such as UCAR's SOARS® program. Nevertheless, it would not resolve the overall difficulties of recruiting minorities to graduate programs in sciences.
|
From page 86... ...
. OBSERVATIONS: TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT AND EMERGENCE OF FIELD PROGRAMS Atmospheric research, operations, and products rely heavily on observations of the state and composition of the atmosphere, oceans, and land surfaces.
|
From page 87... ...
In recent years, the importance of climate change in the atmospheric sciences has created new observational demands for monitoring of the atmosphere, in particular, for sustained observations with global coverage. Satellite-based observations have provided major advances, but suffer from lack of continuity and related problems of calibration among instruments, necessitating continued investment in, and use of, in situ platforms.
|
From page 88... ...
scientists. The upper-atmospheric research community also conducts field campaigns, often planned around fixed observing facilities, such as is the case for the Maui Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere campaign.
|
From page 89... ...
Progress will also depend on the instrumental and observational skills of new generations of atmospheric scientists who need to master ever more sophisticated arrays of in situ and remote atmospheric sensing tools. Effectively nurturing the development of new measurement methods and tools and ensuring the measurement skills of young atmospheric scientists are complex tasks that present special challenges to the atmospheric sciences community and the agencies that support atmospheric research and education.
|
From page 90... ...
0 GUIDANCE FOR NSF'S SUPPORT OF THE ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES BOX 3-3 A History of Field Experiments Joachim Kuettner, Chair Atmospheric Sciences and International Research, UCAR/NCAR Ph.D., Physics (Meteorology) , University of Hamburg, Germany My career in science has spanned much of the last century.
|
From page 91... ...
THE CHANGING CONTEXT FOR ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE Prior to MONEX, in the early 1970s, all member countries of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) agreed to implement GARP, the Global Atmospheric Research Program.
|
From page 92... ...
Finally, the 1990 report went on the recommend that agencies supporting atmospheric chemistry research to "encourage good, innovative instrument development proposals" and "that these projects can be viewed as a key R&D portion of an atmospheric research program and should be a significant (10 to 15 percent) of each agency's overall budget." It also recommended that federally funded laboratories with ongoing instrument development programs be encouraged to form partnerships with university and private-sector laboratories, noting that such arrangements might encourage students to take on instrument development projects because they would be collaborating with successful instrument-oriented professionals (NRC, 1990)
|
From page 93... ...
For instance the Major Research Instrumentation program now has an instrument development component, and, as noted in our interim report (NRC, 2005e) , the NSF Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Research programs have produced valuable atmospheric science instruments.
|
From page 94... ...
The development of good online material that can be shared nationally as well as select fieldwork sites that encourage hands-on engineering internships for students should be the topic of an NSF-sponsored collation effort between atmospheric science and engineering departments, the national center, the AMS, and other federal laboratories that engage in observational tool development. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND COMPUTATIONAL MODELING The extraordinary evolution in information technology over the last 50 years has had a huge impact on the atmospheric sciences.
|
From page 95... ...
in 1997, several field programs have investigated the impact on model forecasts of observations focused on locations found by adjoint models to produce the most forecast error. In the near future, enhancing use of satellite data in model-specified geographic areas to increase the certainty of forecasts will become even more promising because of easier availability and faster response time.
|
From page 96... ...
GUIDANCE FOR NSF'S SUPPORT OF THE ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES BOX 3-4 Atmospheric Reanalyses and Dynamical Seasonal Climate Prediction Jagadish Shukla, Professor George Mason University Ph.D., Banaras Hindu University, Geophysics The NSF is unique among the federal agencies that fund academic research be cause it has the flexibility to entertain and support highly innovative basic research ideas that might be considered high-risk in the mission-driven agencies. I can think of no better example of that approach than the Atmospheric Sciences Division, with which I have worked for more than 20 years.
|
From page 97... ...
All this can be ascribed to the wisdom of the NSF in seeing the value of such an enterprise. Dynamical Seasonal Climate Prediction As early as the late 1970s, I began to suspect that, despite the chaotic nature of day-to-day atmospheric fluctuations we normally ascribe to "weather," the Earth's climate might be predictable beyond the so-called deterministic limit due to slowly varying conditions and processes in the climate system.
|
From page 98... ...
Advancements in simulation, data assimilation, and prediction capabilities have in recent years begun to place serious demands on existing computational resources -- demands that, increasingly, are not being matched by new investments. As pointed out in several reports (NRC, 2001b, 2004)
|
From page 99... ...
that the government agencies that are the major users of supercomputing must take joint responsibility for the strength and continued evolution of supercomputing infrastructure in the United States, and that adequate and sustained funding must be allocated in the national budget. It has long been recognized that strong computing facilities are of primary importance for advancing the atmospheric sciences.
|
From page 100... ...
00 GUIDANCE FOR NSF'S SUPPORT OF THE ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES would be enabled by better, faster models, which require more and more powerful computers. Supporting ever-larger and more capable computing infrastructure should be a high priority, but must be balanced by the other needs of the community, so as not to jeopardize maintaining observational facilities, and, especially, continued support in basic research.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.