AOSC Seminar by Dr. Louis Uccelini, 10/6/2022
AOSC Seminar
Dr. Louis Uccelini
AOSC
Title: Bringing weather services and the intergovernmental emergency management community together to build a weather ready nation
Abstract:
In this seminar, I will review the ongoing effort initiated by the National Weather Service, working in partnership with emergency managers and other public safety organizations, to build a Weather Ready Nation (WRN) (as described in a 2019 BAMS publication by Uccellini and Ten Hoeve). The Weather Ready Nation initiative is motivated by the need to address the nation’s increasing vulnerability to extreme weather, water and short-term climate events. The effort is built upon the Weather Service working together within the so called “Weather Enterprise” and with the Emergency Management (EM) community, across all government levels, to ensure every community is ready for, and responds to, oncoming extreme events. The basis for providing Impact-based Decision Support Services (IDSS) across all government levels will be defined, and successes related to this ten-year effort will be presented. One of the overriding results from the WRN initiative is that the weather community has embraced the need to go beyond simply issuing forecasts and warnings to building a trusted relationship with the EM community and provide direct input into their decision processes designed for improved public safety. This has helped put the EM community into a proactive mode of making decisions 5-8 days before an event such as the current spate of hurricanes making landfall in the Caribbean, Canada and perhaps Florida (based increasingly on longer-range forecasts). This proactive stance contrasts with them reacting to an event after the onset of the damaging life-threatening weather and/or water event. Implications for students entering the meteorological and hydrological forecast community (especially in using physical and social science as a basis for their interactions and partnerships with the EM community) will also be presented. In addition, the need to provide these impact-based services more equitably to the traditionally underserved communities. Lastly the possible relationship of the intragovernmental successes related to building a Weather Ready Nation will be explored with respect to ongoing efforts to build what is being called a Climate Ready Nation in the face of the growing impacts of the global warming now being observed.
Bio:
Uccellini recently retired as the assistant administrator for weather services and 16th director of the National Weather Service at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In this role, he was responsible for the day-to-day civilian weather operations for the United States, its territories, adjacent waters and ocean areas. Prior to his most recent role, Uccellini served as director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) for 14 years. He was responsible for directing and planning the science, technology, and operations related to NCEP’s nine centers. Under his leadership, NOAA built its Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park’s Discovery District. After Uccellini received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he started his federal service as a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheric Sciences, where he was awarded the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. Uccellini served as the permanent U.S. representative at the World Meteorological Organization from 2017-21, as president of the American Meteorological Society in 2012-13, and on many national and international research and field experiment programs. He was selected as a National Academy of Public Administration Fellow in 2019, received the Roger W. Jones Award for Executive Leadership from American University in 2016, received the Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award in 2001 and 2016, and received the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award in 2006.
Contact: Louis Uccelini
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AOSC Seminar
Pre-seminar refreshment: N/A
Seminar: 3:30-4:30pm, Room: ATL 2400(only when in-person)
Meet-the-Speaker: 4:30-5:00pm, Room: ATL 3400(only when in-person) [For AOSC Students only]
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