Search Results
You are looking at 1 - 2 of 2 items for
- Author or Editor: P. A. T. Higgins x
- Refine by Access: Content accessible to me x
For the last five years, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) have teamed up to sponsor a member of our community for a year's work in the U.S. Congress. As the 2005/06 AMS-UCAR Congressional Science Fellow, I chose to work on climate policy in the U.S. Senate. I witnessed the following three major obstacles to legislation intended to protect the climate system: 1) there is a persistent gap in understanding between policy makers and the research community, 2) there is a small group of powerful interests that will experience the costs of climate policy acutely while many of the benefits of climate policy will be distributed diffusely among members of society, and 3) there is concern—legitimate and misplaced—over the economic consequences of unilateral U.S. action and the genuine need for international cooperation. The scientific community can help solve these problems. The Congressional Science Fellowship program, for example, provides a valuable opportunity for scientists to actively engage in the policy process and to help reduce the gap in understanding between the research and policy communities. During my year, I focused on developing powerful incentives to encourage international cooperation and provisions to ease acute distributional impacts that could arise from reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Based on my time in Congress and despite remaining political and technological hurdles, I conclude that we have the capacity to enact legislation that begins reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.
For the last five years, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) have teamed up to sponsor a member of our community for a year's work in the U.S. Congress. As the 2005/06 AMS-UCAR Congressional Science Fellow, I chose to work on climate policy in the U.S. Senate. I witnessed the following three major obstacles to legislation intended to protect the climate system: 1) there is a persistent gap in understanding between policy makers and the research community, 2) there is a small group of powerful interests that will experience the costs of climate policy acutely while many of the benefits of climate policy will be distributed diffusely among members of society, and 3) there is concern—legitimate and misplaced—over the economic consequences of unilateral U.S. action and the genuine need for international cooperation. The scientific community can help solve these problems. The Congressional Science Fellowship program, for example, provides a valuable opportunity for scientists to actively engage in the policy process and to help reduce the gap in understanding between the research and policy communities. During my year, I focused on developing powerful incentives to encourage international cooperation and provisions to ease acute distributional impacts that could arise from reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Based on my time in Congress and despite remaining political and technological hurdles, I conclude that we have the capacity to enact legislation that begins reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.
Abstract
Emerging application areas such as air pollution in megacities, wind energy, urban security, and operation of unmanned aerial vehicles have intensified scientific and societal interest in mountain meteorology. To address scientific needs and help improve the prediction of mountain weather, the U.S. Department of Defense has funded a research effort—the Mountain Terrain Atmospheric Modeling and Observations (MATERHORN) Program—that draws the expertise of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, and multinational group of researchers. The program has four principal thrusts, encompassing modeling, experimental, technology, and parameterization components, directed at diagnosing model deficiencies and critical knowledge gaps, conducting experimental studies, and developing tools for model improvements. The access to the Granite Mountain Atmospheric Sciences Testbed of the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, as well as to a suite of conventional and novel high-end airborne and surface measurement platforms, has provided an unprecedented opportunity to investigate phenomena of time scales from a few seconds to a few days, covering spatial extents of tens of kilometers down to millimeters. This article provides an overview of the MATERHORN and a glimpse at its initial findings. Orographic forcing creates a multitude of time-dependent submesoscale phenomena that contribute to the variability of mountain weather at mesoscale. The nexus of predictions by mesoscale model ensembles and observations are described, identifying opportunities for further improvements in mountain weather forecasting.
Abstract
Emerging application areas such as air pollution in megacities, wind energy, urban security, and operation of unmanned aerial vehicles have intensified scientific and societal interest in mountain meteorology. To address scientific needs and help improve the prediction of mountain weather, the U.S. Department of Defense has funded a research effort—the Mountain Terrain Atmospheric Modeling and Observations (MATERHORN) Program—that draws the expertise of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, and multinational group of researchers. The program has four principal thrusts, encompassing modeling, experimental, technology, and parameterization components, directed at diagnosing model deficiencies and critical knowledge gaps, conducting experimental studies, and developing tools for model improvements. The access to the Granite Mountain Atmospheric Sciences Testbed of the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, as well as to a suite of conventional and novel high-end airborne and surface measurement platforms, has provided an unprecedented opportunity to investigate phenomena of time scales from a few seconds to a few days, covering spatial extents of tens of kilometers down to millimeters. This article provides an overview of the MATERHORN and a glimpse at its initial findings. Orographic forcing creates a multitude of time-dependent submesoscale phenomena that contribute to the variability of mountain weather at mesoscale. The nexus of predictions by mesoscale model ensembles and observations are described, identifying opportunities for further improvements in mountain weather forecasting.
