Summary written by Dr. James Yoe, JCSDA Chief Administrative Officer
The JCSDA was proud to host its 8th Symposium at the Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in Boston, MA January 12 - 17, 2020. This was the 100th meeting for the AMS, and consequently a very well-attended one. The participation of US federal government employees, many of whom were furloughed and unable to take part in the 99th AMS meeting, may also have swelled the ranks and clearly increased the energy and excitement of the gathering.
Dr. Yannick Trémolet, JEDI Project Lead, giving a presentation at the 8th Annual JCSDA Symposium, AMS 2021. (Photo: J. Yoe)
In total, there were 755 sessions and over 4300 presentations, counting both talks and posters. Indeed, it was challenging to attend as many of the presentations as one would like; with parallel sessions, every attendee had to make difficult choices on a regular basis. The JCSDA was fortunate then, to hold it’s symposium on Tuesday, January 14; though there were compelling alternative sessions, it may have been the most well-attended day overall, and the JCSDA posters and talks received a great deal of attention. Note that many of the presentations are recorded and available online from the AMS meeting website, so there is still an opportunity for our audience to see ones they missed.
The symposium program was organized into five oral sessions, as well as a poster session. The first oral session was chaired by Kevin Garrett of NESDIS/STAR and was devoted to Land, Ocean, and Cryosphere DA. Daryl Kleist (NWS/NCEP) and Guillaume Vernieres (JCSDA) co-chaired the second oral session, on New Contributions to the Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM.) Jim Yoe (NCEP and JCSDA) and Ben Johnson (JCSDA) co-chaired the last oral session of the morning, on Contributions to the Joint Effort for Data assimilation Integration (JEDI).
Audience, containing several JCSDA core team members, watching presentation at the 8th JCSDA Symposium, AMS 2021. (Photo: J. Yoe)
Dr. Maryam Abdioskouei, core team member of the JCSDA JEDI team, presents on automatic code testing. (Photo: J. Yoe)
For many the lunch break was no break at all, as there were multiple AMS Town Hall meetings of interest to the JCSDA community. These included a NOAA Modeling Forum, a discussion of the USAF’s Weather Capabilities Roadmap, and meeting on NASA Science and Space Weather - among still others.
The symposium was rounded out in the afternoon with an oral session on Assimilation of Aerosol Observations chaired by Ron Gelaro (NASA) and Yannick Tremolet (JCSDA) and one on the Assimilation of New Observations, with Ben Ruston (NRL) and Jim Yoe at the podium. The ensuing poster session was lively and well attended.