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Careers in Meteorology

Beyond the Weather Channel

"Everybody talks about the weather," Mark Twain once quipped, "but nobody does anything about it."

If only he were around today. Because, while nobody has figured out yet how to change the weather, a great deal is being done to figure it out before it gets here - and to benefit from the advance knowledge.

The wonders of weather, the future of forecasting, and much more are being taught at Embry-Riddle in a rapidly growing bachelor's degree program in Applied Meteorology. Enrollment in the program, offered on the Daytona Beach, Fla., campus, has soared from 24 students in August 2000, when it began, to more than 80 in May 2003. About the same number of students are earning minors in meteorology in Daytona Beach and on the Prescott, Ariz., campus.

Beyond the Weather Channel

For most of us, a meteorologist is the person on television who stands next to a map and talks about storm fronts. But there are many other fascinating weather jobs that are less visible, yet vitally important.

Meteorologists use scientific principles to explain, understand, observe, or forecast atmospheric phenomena and how the atmosphere affects the Earth and life on the planet.

Besides TV and radio stations, meteorologists work for the government - the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its better-known offspring, the National Weather Service - the military, universities, and consulting businesses.

Research meteorologists assess the threat of global warming, study the sources, movement and changes in airborne pollutants, look at the causes of droughts and their impact on agriculture, and work to understand how hurricanes form and how to predict their paths.

According to Mary Snow, assistant professor of meteorology and one of 13 Embry-Riddle weather faculty on both campuses, job opportunities are decreasing at public employers such as the National Weather Service, whose forecasts help the general public and large industries such as aviation and agriculture. However, the atmosphere is getting thick with private organizations that have formed to serve clients with a need for very specialized forecasts.

These companies take on tasks such as short-term, small-scale snow forecasts for city public works managers who need to know how many snowplows to put on neighborhood streets when a winter storm is on the way. The shift by many business travelers from commercial to corporate aircraft after Sept. 11 also created a huge need among corporate flight providers for private weather services.

Private forecasters also work for commodities traders who are concerned about the effects of weather on crop production and prices. They forecast the weather for professional football games and golf tournaments. They inform utility companies about impending hot spells or cold waves that will put heavy demands on generating plants and transmission systems. They supply local weather forecasts to radio and television stations that don't have their own meteorologists.

Meteorologist consultants help planners and contractors locate and design airports, factories, and other structures. They supply climate information for heating and air conditioning engineers. They testify as experts in court cases involving the weather.

Bottom lines and higher ground

With weather data at the hour-to-day scale, airlines can reschedule crews and aircraft to avoid severe weather or potential flight delays. Public authorities can anticipate regions of potential flooding or flash floods and help people to protect themselves and their property before the event. Schools can decide whether to have graduation outdoors or move it inside.

Multi-day weather forecasts of three to seven days are used for all types of planning. Contractors can schedule construction activities. Shipping companies can plan routing to conserve fuel. Retailers can rush plywood or snow blowers to stores in areas being threatened by a big storm. Specialty nurseries, such as the fern and strawberry growers in Florida, can prepare for hard freezes. Planners of sporting and tourism events - and athletes and tourists - can adjust for wet, cold, hot, or extreme conditions.

As seasonal and regional forecasts become more accurate, they are being employed in a variety of ways. Forewarned months in advance, a farmer can decide to sow drought-resistant crop strains, or a different crop altogether. Alerted about a cold, snowy winter, retailers can add more sweaters, jackets, shovels, and salt to the inventory.

Some people are even trading in "weather futures" on the stock market. With weather affecting an estimated 20 percent of the U.S. economy, particularly in the agriculture, energy, insurance, recreation, and retail industries, the over-the-counter market in managing weather-related risk has grown significantly over the past few years.

"Utility companies can predict and preclude brownouts and blackouts by knowing when unusually high peak demands loom, such as in 1999 when a heat wave took nearly 250 lives," Snow said. "Similarly, local news shows can warn those without air conditioning of impending heat waves so they can take safe measures."

Of course, even the most sophisticated weather warnings can be to no avail, as the world saw during last summer's deadly heat wave in Europe. "We can warn a country for weeks that a cyclone is coming and they need to get people to high ground, but in a country like Bangladesh there is no high ground and there is no mass warning system," said Richard Bagby, associate professor of meteorology at Embry-Riddle. "In the case of France last summer, the problem was not a lack of warning, but an absence of air conditioning."

A bright forecast for weather's future

So what are the exciting new developments in weather forecasting that today's meteorology students can expect in the next decade?

As much weather information as satellites now produce - more than 1,000 gigabytes daily - "most users can't get it fast enough to use it before the next day's data stream arrives," according to Chris Herbster, assistant professor of meteorology at Embry-Riddle.

Plus, Herbster says, our satellite's-eye view of the atmosphere still reveals little about the actual height of clouds and the associated changes in height and humidity. "Surprisingly little of the atmosphere is actually observed at the site," he said.

Herbster is telling his students to watch the promising field of nanotechnology. "Imagine a million tiny sensors spread at high altitude over the Atlantic Ocean, providing unparalleled detail of pressures, temperatures, and humidity over a broad region for days at a time," he said. "The information this could give scientists and forecasters who focus on hurricanes is revolutionary. Expect to hear about this technology from NASA in five to ten years."

Other scientists are looking closely at the warming and cooling of the Pacific Ocean, the cycles that cause El Nio and La Nia, in order to get a handle on them one year or 18 months beforehand.

"We'd always known that fishermen off the coast of Peru had terrible catches when the cold water didn't rise to the surface, but we didn't connect that to the world climate," Bagby said. "With satellites, high-speed computers, and atmospheric modeling we now have a way to collect sea-surface temperatures and weather information from different parts of the world."

The final frontier for forecasters will be space weather. "If technology progresses at its present rate, we're going to be traveling to the moon, Mars, and Venus in the next 50 years," Bagby said. "There will be a need to forecast interplanetary hazards such as solar radiation, as well as atmospheric conditions on specific planets and moons."

"The best thing about studying meteorology is that you never finish," Herbster said. "Just when you think you have a phenomenon figured out, a new insight into a related process will completely change the way that you observe similar events."

Snapshot

By the end of their fourth semester, Applied Meteorology majors choose one of four areas of concentration:

• Commercial Weather -- focuses on the impact of weather on business operations; may include a minor in Business Administration with selection of certain courses.
• Flight Weather -- focuses on providing weather services to the aviation/aerospace industry.
• Media Weather -- focuses on communicating meteorological phenomena via journalism, radio, and television.
• Research -- focuses on preparation for graduate studies and positions with federal agencies and the military.

By Robert Ross

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