Minutes of the 12th Annual AMS Satellite Meteorology and Oceanography meeting in Long Beach
February 12, 2003
Those in attendance: Ralph Ferraro, Jeff Hawkins, Chris Velden, Frank Monaldo,
John Zapotocny, Ken Holmlund, Gerald Dittberner, Robbie Hood, Marshall Shepherd,
Elaine Prins, Jeff Puschell, Jaime Daniels, Arlene Laing, Joe Turk,
Yale Schiffman (AMS), Eric Smith (NASA/GSFC)
Ralph Ferraro opened the meeting at 11:45 and introduced Jeff Hawkins.
Jeff Hawkins mentioned that 80% of the papers at this conference were in a poster
format with the remaining 20% presented as plenary-type _-hour talks. He expressed
great displeasure with the format and venue of the poster presentations, which was
downstairs in one room with posters for all conferences, rather than having the posters
in the same room as where the talks are being presented. He suggested that we express
our great displeasure with this format to the AMS so that it is not replicated again
in the future, especially for the September 2004 conference in Norfolk, Virginia.
He also proposed that consider alternate conference locations, apart from the AMS
annual meetings, even if it is slightly more expensive for the registration fee.
John Zapotocny suggested that it is the joint session posters that might be better
placed in a separate venue, rather than all SatMet posters.
Gerald Dittberner suggested that the SatMet conference that coincides with the
annual meeting could have talks only, and make the meetings that don't coincide
with the annual meeting more poster-oriented.
Yale Schiffman mentioned at this point that the AMS annual meeting program committee
wanted all posters (from all conferences) in one room, whereas the satellite
meteorology (SATMET) committee had requested that their posters be in the same room
as the SATMET talks. The Long Beach venue couldn;t accommodate this (670 posters
total at this annual meeting). He apologized for the arrangement and suggested
that we mention the poster issue to the annual meeting program committee prior to
the 2006 conference (which would be the next time that the SATMET conference would
intersect with the annual meeting).
Ralph Ferraro mentioned that SATMET loses attendees to the Hydrology and IIPS
conferences, since those conferences offer more talks and the presenters get 15
minutes to speak.
Eric Smith mentioned that in this case, that the posters not be up for the entire
week so that the attendees make a better point of being near the posters and not
focusing only on attending oral presentations. Chris Velden disagreed, saying
that he preferred the posters up for a longer period of time.
At this point, the discussion was shifted to Brad Colman from the AMS. He mentioned
that a new target for the AMS is less "specialty" at the annual meeting conferences
since AMS lost about $500K on meetings last year. The annual meeting industry
exhibitors provide needed revenue to the AMS and therefore AMS needs to keep as
many attendees as they can to the annual meeting.
A general discussion followed. The general consensus of the SATMET committee was
that if the poster format was to be preserved, then the poster presenters need to
be placed on equal footing with the oral presenters. Eric Smith mentioned that
the SATMET committee addressed this 10 years ago to the AMS headquarters. The
suggestion was made to have our opinion/recommendations made to the annual meeting
oversight committee, which was meeting the following morning (February 13).
Ralph Ferraro brought up the rest of the items on the meeting agenda. The next
SATMET conference date is the week of September 20, 2004, in Norfolk, Virginia.
Elaine Prins is chairing the meeting. He suggested that we have some short courses
at the 2004 annual meeting in Seattle (January 2004). Suggestions were made by
Joe Turk (data assimilation) and Arlene Laing (quantitative use of new satellite/sensors).
Joe and Marshall Shepherd agreed to coordinate and poll members for their input on this.
Joe Turk and Jeff Puschell presented the revised AMS policy statement on use of
satellite data for meteorology. It had some changes to highlight new technologies
and additional users of the data. They passed around copies for everyone including
copies for Brad Colman and Melissa Weston.
Marshall Shepherd asked if it was within the SATMET committee's jurisdiction to show
support for international satellite programs. Brad Colman said that any such show of
support would have to go to the "COMPUB" (Commission on Public Policy) of the AMS.
Ralph Ferraro mentioned that the SATMET website needs to be moved to a new location
now that Frank Monaldo is no longer supporting it. A suggestion was made to move it
to NRL-Monterey, although Brad Colman mentioned that the AMS is in the process of
adopting new information technology structures and that these may impact the SATMET
website hosting and location.
Award nominations are due on May 1st, as well as nominations for new AMS fellows.
Also the AMS is looking for the Walter Orr Roberts lecture for the annual meeting
in Seattle, which is then published in the AMS Bulletin afterwards. Pres.-elect
Avery is centering the 2005 meeting about "grand challenges"- they are open to suggestions.
On a final note, Ken Holmlund (EUMETSAT) suggested that AMS SATMET and EUMETSAT host a
joint meeting in 2006, in a European venue. The last time the AMS SATMET meeting
was overseas was in 1998 in Paris.
Meeting adjourned shortly after 1:30 PM.
Maria.Vasys@ssec.wisc.edu
last modified: 12 January, 2004
|