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From the Chair
Dear CCM Colleagues,
2020 has thus far proven to be a very busy year for the BCCM. Here is an update on the status of several of our activities.
1.The BCCM has confirmed Charlie Paxton to serve as Chair-elect in 2021. Charlie will then be leading the CCM Board as Chair in 2022. Congratulations to Charlie, and thank you for stepping into this position! Mark McGinnis is the current Chair-Elect and will be taking over for me at the end of January 2021.
2. The BCCM is pleased to welcome three new members who will begin their four-year terms in January 2021. They are: Thomas “TC” Moore of Raleigh, NC, Adam Pasch of St. Louis, MO, and Morgan Yarker of Cedar Rapids, IA.
3. In 2020 the BCCM has been involved in updating some aspects of our oral exam, following the revamping of the written exam and consulting essay (formerly known as the technical report) over the last two years. The slide discussion portion of the oral exam was reviewed and new specialized optional sections in air quality and in marine, radar, and aviation meteorology were created. We also reviewed the introductory slides and updated the tropical meteorology section. I especially want to thank Kathryn Prociv for leading this effort and for reformatting all the slides. We also spent a lot of time working on translating our oral exam procedure to a virtual format. We had planned to move in this direction in 2020 anyway, but the pandemic made the pivot to online exams essential. Kelly Savoie and Rex Horner helped me do several practice runs and wrote detailed instructions for BCCM members and for me before our first “live” exam last week.
4. This has been a banner year for CCM candidates! I am not sure if this is due to extra time at home due to the coronavirus, the result of last year’s successful short course, or because more people are now seeing the value of the CCM program. It is most likely some of each. We have had 25 completed applications so far in 2020, double the number that Alicia reported at this time last year. Seven of those candidates have successfully passed the written portion of the exam and are ready for orals. Five exams are in the process of being graded, and 12 are in the hands of the candidates for completion. We also have five carry-overs from 2018 and 2019 who are eligible for oral exams. The CCM Board will be hard at work grading written and oral exams during the last quarter of 2020! We have six virtual orals already scheduled, with more expected as additional written exams are returned and graded.
As always, if you have interest in serving a term on the CCM Board, please reach out to myself, Mark McGinnis, chair-elect for 2021, or Charlie Paxton, incoming chair-elect.
Pam Knox (CCM #587)
Chair, Board of Certified Consulting Meteorologists
American Meteorological Society
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Association of Certified Meteorologists Networking Forum
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The Association of Certified Meteorologists (ACM) engaged in an exciting networking forum for members the evening of September 16, 2020. The forum was virtual and centered around two sessions with three topics in each session. Each session lasted 45 minutes.
In the first session, members had a choice of three topics – Emergency Management, Forensic and Applied Meteorology, and Aviation Forensic Consulting.
The second session had choices of Air Quality Consulting, Marine and Oceanic Consulting and an open theme “Coffee Talk”.
In all, 28 members signed up and participated in the virtual networking forum and future sessions are planned.
The session was followed by an ACM Business Meeting open to all members.
To learn more about ACM you can find more information at www.certifiedmeteorologists.org and at LinkedIn.
Contributed by Mark McGinnis, CCM
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"Social Media Ethics for the Meteorologist" is officially in print in the August 2020 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. It is the latest in a series of articles on ethics that were commissioned by the Board of Certified Consulting Meteorologists in 2011. The article discusses the fair treatment of others on social media while maintaining one’s own reputation and credibility. It also provides a threat assessment and response framework.
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M.S. in Integrated Scientific Applications at Millersville University
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The primary objective of the M.S. in Integrated Scientific Applications (MSISA) program at Millersville University is to produce business-ready scientists. This 36-credit hour, non-thesis, professional graduate degree blends a core curriculum of business, economics, finance, and statistics courses with one of five specializations in weather intelligence and risk management, geoinformatics, environmental systems management, climate science applications, and space weather and environment: science, policy and communication. Whether your career is in forensics, air quality/public health, weather risk management, big data analytics, policy, urban sustainability and climate action, space weather, or sundry other professions that require a scientific underpinning coupled with business savvy, the MSISA program can give you the knowledge-base and skill-set that you are looking for to be a valued scientist in a business environment.
For more information, contact Richard Clark, Program Coordinator.
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As COMET enters the fall season, they've already had their first snow, right on the heels of a record-setting hot summer featuring plenty of wildfire smoke, both local and from points west. COMET staff continues working remotely, and producing materials in support of their community. Case in point: COMET partnered with NSF to map MetEd lesson content to U.S. university meteorology course curricula, and has started organizing the materials under a new “University Course Support” tab on MetEd’s Education and Training page. Take a look!
Below you will find links to COMET’s latest additions to their library of materials. Six new English lessons were published, covering surface precipitation instruments and measurement, tidal analysis, GNSS positioning, the NWS Aviation Program, and two updated lessons on rip currents. The precipitation lesson deserves special mention, as it is the culmination of a multi-year effort that completes the Instrumentation and Measurement of Atmospheric Parameters course, for which you can now earn a completion certificate!
COMET thanks you for using their training materials, and hope you and your loved ones continue to stay safe and healthy in these difficult times.
New COMET Lessons in English
New COMET Lessons in Spanish
In Spanish, this quarter two GOES-R/JPSS satellite case studies were published, one aviation lesson on turbulence, and the instrumentation and measurement lesson on cloud hydrometeors and airborne particles.
Currently, these materials are freely available to everyone, courtesy of COMET's primary sponsors. They are NOAA's NWS, NESDIS and NOS programs, EUMETSAT, the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, the Meteorological Service of Canada, Bureau of Meteorology, and the USACE and DOI/Reclamation.
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Upcoming Meetings
See information regarding AMS meetings and COVID-19.
2020 AMS Washington Forum
26–28 October 2020, Washington, DC, Virtual Meeting
101st AMS Annual Meeting
10–14 January 2021, New Orleans, LA
(Registration rates for virtual elements have been posted)
34th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology
9–14 May 2021, New Orleans, LA
13th Fire and Forest Meteorology Symposium
11–13 May 2021, Palm Springs, CA
49th Conference on Broadcast Meteorology/Sixth Conference on Weather Warnings and Communication
15–18 June 2021, Milwaukee, WI
34th Conference on Agricultural and Forest Meteorology/Fifth Conference on Atmospheric Biogeosciences
21–23 June 2021, Minneapolis, MN
24th Symposium on Boundary Layers and Turbulence
12–16 July 2021, Šibenik, Croatia
40th Conference on Radar Meteorology
30 August–3 September 2021, Minneapolis, MN
30th Conference on Severe Local Storms
18–22 October 2021, Santa Fe, NM
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Journal Articles of Interest | |
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Below please find a select group of articles from upcoming AMS journals we thought would be of interest to you. To access these articles, follow the listed links to the abstracts. To access the full article, click on the PDF tab.
Individual and institutional subscription access for online journal articles resumed on October 1, 2020, with all journal articles freely available one year after publication date. If you do not have a subscription and require a password to view these articles, please contact Rex Horner.
Models Project Worrisome Increase in Rapidly Intensified Hurricanes
Journal of Climate
A new modeling comparison shows a disturbing trend with continued global warming: a “substantial” increase in landfalling dangerous hurricanes in the Northern Hemisphere, with large, increasing odds of rapid intensification. As seen recently with Hurricanes Laura and Sally on the Gulf Coast, quick intensification leading up to landfall can be devastating. The new research reveals both an increase in tropical cyclone frequency and intensity, particularly at higher latitudes in the North Atlantic. Additionally, the new work confirms that storms may slow down and “paints a robust picture of increasing tropical cyclone risk” from extreme wind and rainfall.
Discuss on Twitter: #JClimate
Southeasterners Have Dangerous Misperceptions of Their Tornado Risks
Weather, Climate, and Society
A new survey finds that Southeasterns have misperceptions about their tornado risks. The lack of a single, “traditional” tornado season as well as tornadoes occurring at night and spawning from multiple types of storm systems makes knowledge about tornado likelihood especially important in the Southeast. Researchers suggest Southeasterners may be misusing well known tornado facts about the Great Plains to their own region.
Discuss on Twitter: #WeaClimateSoc
We May Be Able to Further Improve Hurricane Track Forecasts After All
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
While a 2018 essay in BAMS found that improvements in track forecasts for tropical storms and hurricanes have slowed and suggested they may have reached a limit, new research finds a way to further refine them in the coming decades. Using a different interpretation of track position errors than the earlier article, the research moves the predictability limit for tropical cyclones out to 6-8 days in the next 10-30 years.
Discuss on Twitter: #BulletinAMS
A New Climate Extremes Vulnerability Index
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
With an increase in extreme weather and climate events adversely impacting people’s health as well as the economy in recent decades, there’s an urgent need to know what populations in the United States are most vulnerable to these changes. Scientists from the University of Georgia combined NOAA's Climate Extremes Index with CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index to create a climate Extremes Vulnerability Index that identifies subregional susceptibility to abnormal weather and climate.
Discuss on Twitter: #BulletinAMS
Lessons Learned from a Severe Flash Drought
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
The lack of warning preceding the quick-onset, or flash, drought of 2017 in the northern Great Plains highlights the importance of environmental monitoring in a region where seasonal forecasts lack skill. That’s just one of an inventory of lessons learned from this agricultural disaster, which caused U.S. losses exceeding $2.6 billion and brought widespread wildfires, eroded air quality, damaged ecosystems, and degraded mental health.
Discuss on Twitter: #BulletinAMS
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LinkedIn
Please join the CCM LinkedIn group if you haven’t already! The group is accessible and open only to CCMs. Follow the link anove and click "Request to join." LinkedIn is an easy way for CCMs to communicate with each other and to keep abreast of news, developments, and items of interest.
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Twitter
For all CCMs, colleagues, and the general public, we also have a Twitter
account. If you are on Twitter, please follow the handle @AMS_BCCM and use it to promote your activities and events.
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Thanks to all of our contributors for this issue
We encourage you to share your experiences, views, findings, or studies for the next newsletter. E-mail your articles to Kelly Savoie and Rex Horner. This newsletter as well as past issues are available online.
The Winter 2020 newsletter submission deadline is December 15, 2020.
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