Spotlight: AMS Climate Studies Diversity Project

From 21-26 May, 26 faculty members of minority-serving colleges and universities attended the AMS Education Program's 5th AMS Climate Studies Diversity Project workshop. The workshop prepared faculty to teach the AMS Climate Studies course and introduced them to climate research and operational forecasting. Participants attended presentations from high-level speakers, including NOAA personnel, and took field trips to the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction, NOAA Headquarters, the Howard University Beltsville Center for Climate System Observation, and the Marian Koshland Science Museum.

The workshop series is supported by NSF and has been conducted in partnership with Second Nature and with in-kind support from NOAA and NASA.  More than 125 minority-serving institution faculty have participated in the program, bringing this timely content into many newly-offered courses.

What's New?

TWO NEW AMS StatementS APPROVED

The AMS Council has given final approval on two new AMS Statements:

• The Policy Statement "Water Resources in the 21st Century"
• The Information Statement "Bachelor's Degree in Atmospheric Science" 

Revising the AMS Statement on Climate Change

AMS issued an Information Statement on Climate Change in August 2012. Statements remain in force for 5 years, so at this time AMS seeks to update this statement to reflect the advances in understanding and modeling of climate variability and change since 2012. If you would like to be considered for service on the drafting committee, please send your name and contact information with a brief description of your background to the AMS Council. Full Guidelines on the AMS Statement process can be downloaded here.

AMS Position Letters

AMS recently signed two letters of support with other organizations in an effort to reach policy and thought leaders on critically important topics across the greater scientific community:

On 18 May, a letter was sent to the State Department expressing concerns about proposed changes to the Visa process,

On 24 May, a letter was sent to Congressional leaders urging them to reject the proposed cuts to science that are part of the Administration’s FY2018 budget proposal.