News

Dear Colleagues,

Like so many of you, UCAR leadership has been busy discussing President Trump's executive orders and how they may impact our organization. We have created a federal response team to review the many actions coming out of Washington and guide our responses. This is a time of great uncertainty, and we are waiting for guidance from NSF and our other federal funders while continuing to advance the vital research needed to protect lives and property, support U.S. economic competitiveness, and strengthen our national security.

To ensure that we are in compliance with the executive orders, UCAR and NSF NCAR closed our offices that engaged in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work, effective January 24. All of the organization's DEI-related work has ended. 

Although this was disappointing for many of us, we must follow certain federal guidelines as both a federal contractor and an NSF federally funded research and development center (FFRDC). UCAR and NSF NCAR have always taken pride in providing a positive and constructive work environment, and we will continue to build a workplace culture that boosts productivity, promotes employee engagement, and values all staff.

Last fall, we also began making changes to our flexible work policy that had been implemented after the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the next few months, the great majority of our staff - all those who live within a 50-mile radius of their group's primary work location - will return to the office at least three days a week. This new policy, however, does not affect those employees who accepted positions contingent on working remotely, nor those who were fully remote before the pandemic. The greater onsite presence will enable us to create a much richer experience for the many students, visitors, and postdoctoral researchers who come to our facilities each year. 

It was wonderful to see so many of you at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society last month. I was honored to lead a special Presidential Session panel on the impacts of Hurricane Katrina. The members of the panel - Ashleigh Gardere, President of PolicyLink; Russel L. Honoré, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General; Allison Plyer, Chief Demographer at The Data Center; and Nancy Rabalais, Professor and Shell Endowed Chair in Oceanography and Wetland Studies, Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences at Louisiana State University - brought a rich range of perspectives as we discussed the fallout from the deadly storm and lessons learned in the aftermath.

In other news related to AMS, the Times Picayune/New Orleans Advocate published an op-ed by myself and Francis Bouchard (the managing director for climate at Marsh McLennan and board chairman of SBP, a New Orleans–based nonprofit disaster relief organization) about the importance of interdisciplinary collaborations to safeguard society from extreme weather events. The op-ed, which ran during the AMS conference, highlighted the important role of the insurance industry in partnering with Earth system scientists as we all seek to prevent the next major storm from being as destructive as Katrina. 

The UCAR booth at AMS drew a number of visitors, offering an important opportunity to engage with partners and agencies. The third UCAR Community Reception drew about 400 attendees as we celebrated our shared mission to advance Earth system science. Thankfully the meeting was held before the historic snowstorm that blanketed New Orleans and much of the Gulf coast. 

At its quarterly meeting last week, the UCAR Board of Trustees received an update about the future of the MPAS and WRF community models, including the prioritization of and progress on MPAS development goals, as well as NSF NCAR's commitment to continuing support for WRF. In addition, we heard presentations from NSF NCAR scientist Isla Simpson about new research that shows a discrepancy in atmospheric water vapor trends between models and observations, and from Robert Payo and Sharon Clark of the UCAR Center for Science Education about the center's educational resources and web metrics.

In closing, I want to reaffirm that, in these uncertain times, it is more important than ever to work together as a community. As events in the past several months have tragically demonstrated, from the destruction of Hurricanes Helene and Milton to the fires in the Los Angeles area, our nation remains deeply vulnerable to a range of large-scale environmental disasters. I firmly believe we must remain focused on close collaborations across multiple disciplines as we advance the research needed to safeguard vulnerable communities and strengthen the nation's resilience to storms and other disasters that are imposing growing costs on our society.

Sincerely,

Antonio J. Busalacchi