COMET
We congratulate David Russi, COMET's Spanish translator for over 18 years, for receiving the 2024 UCAR Excellence Award in Education & Outreach for his contributions to fostering understanding of and engagement with scientific concepts and issues for current and new generations of scientists. Over his time at COMET, David led the translation of 400 MetEd educational resources and developed the popular COMET Translation Resource Center website. David also created the only English-Spanish glossary for meteorology terms currently in existence (with approximately 13,000 terms). Congratulations David.
This year, COMET celebrates ten years of 3D-PAWS. Ten years ago, Paul Kucera and Martin Steinson- the COMET International Capacity Development Program Assistant Director and engineer, respectively-implemented the groundbreaking idea that was first developed by a former UCAR staff member, the late Kelly Sponberg: Could we use 3D printers to create low-cost and sustainable weather stations to boost weather observation networks for data-sparse regions? The answer has been yes. The 3-D Printed Automatic Weather Station project continues to expand with the launch of a Regional Training Center in Barbados and additional Centers beginning in Turkey and Kenya.
Aviation Hazards: Thuderstorms
The COMET Program is pleased to announce transformed and fully-published Distance Learning Aviation Courses (DLAC) training curricula for aviation meteorologists that are available via the MetEd website. These courses consist of multiple lessons and give aviation forecasters information on the general infrastructure, roles, and responsibilities of the NWS aviation program and the needs of external stakeholders, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), commercial airlines, and general aviators. The curricula provide learners with baseline knowledge of critical aviation observations, forecast tools, and key products such as the Terminal Aerodrome Forecast (TAF). Originally published over 15 years ago, these courses are mandatory training for the NWS, and meteorological services worldwide use them to meet the international competency requirements for aviation forecasters.
SciEd
This year, SciEd achieved notable milestones in education and outreach. A new exhibit, Winds Through Time, was installed at the NSF NCAR Mesa Lab. This collaborative effort with CU Boulder, NOAA, and WHOI guided CU Boulder students in developing prototype exhibits, culminating in designing and fabricating a selected student project.
SciEd also actively participated in multiple solar eclipse events. While part of the team hosted a viewing event at the Mesa Lab, others partnered with NSF NCAR EdEC to engage communities along the path of totality for the NASA-funded Citizen CATE project.
In partnership with the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and NASA Langley, SciEd is contributing to the National Ozone Garden Network, supported by NASA TEAM II funding. Additionally, a new collaboration with Denver Public Schools focuses on climate education training for teachers, using an innovative fee-based model to expand workshop offerings.
SciEd is teaming up with CU Boulder's Computer Science Program on a senior capstone project to develop an accessible online version of the Nitrogen Cycle game. Looking ahead, the team plans to install a new Sun-Earth Connections exhibit at the Mesa Lab in spring 2025, replacing the 2011 installation with updated, interactive experiences.
The NSF SOARS program is also evolving. A renewal proposal submitted in April 2025 will introduce partnerships with private industry and other sectors, offering students expanded career pathway support in the Earth system sciences workforce.
These initiatives highlight SciEd's commitment to fostering education, collaboration, and innovation in 2024 and beyond.
CPAESS
Every two years, SPS | CPAESS hosts the Summer Institute in partnership with NOAA for the Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellows, a program CPAESS has managed for 34 years. This July, researchers from across the U.S. gathered in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, for this Summer Institute. The fellowship and research-sharing were without rivals, and several participants shared that the atmosphere reminded them of summer camp. The primary goal of the Institute is to build a stronger global climate change community by introducing the postdoctoral fellows, who are hosted at research institutions throughout the U.S., to each other and more senior scientists. Its schedule consisted of 4 days of scientific talks, a tour of Storm Peak Laboratory, interspersed with periods of recreational activities and spirited discussions covering the wide range of disciplines represented by the participants' expertise.
In June, CPAESS managed the NSF CEDAR Workshop, which fosters new ideas for the community focused on understanding the fundamental properties of the space-atmosphere interaction region, identifying the interconnected processes that define the local and global behavior, the evolution, and influence on the SunEarth system; and exploring their predictability. The workshop includes community-organized breakout workshops, grand challenge workshops, poster sessions with a student poster competition, a student day, plenary sessions with science highlights, agency updates and tutorials, a distinguished lecture, and a prize lecture.
Center for Ocean Leadership (COL)
Engaging the COL Affiliate Network
COL has facilitated communication and collaboration among its expanding network of 90+ affiliate institutions from academic, nonprofit, and commercial sectors, with quasi-monthly newsletters, a January survey of priorities, a town hall at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in February, and two virtual discussion forums in Spring 2024 on "Sustainability and Modernization of the Ocean Observing System" and "Fostering a Diverse and Inclusive Ocean Workforce." These were followed up with a group visit to Capitol Hill in July, facilitated by UCAR's Government Relations office. The reports from the virtual forums are now on OpenSky at https://doi.org/10.5065/7kpt-c957 and https://doi.org/10.5065/dn0a-pe98 and will be the topic of discussion at the COL town hall in the fall 2024 AGU meeting.
The National Ocean Sciences Bowl's successful 2024 competition year
In this first NOSB competition season held since NOSB moved to UCAR, the NOSB team - Melissa Brodeur and Nicole Palma, coordinated with partner organizations to host 17 regional competitions, serving 650 student participants from 21 states. Instead of a national finals competition, participating teams applied to attend the Capitol Hill Ocean Week conference in DC in June. One lucky team from Ladue Horton Watkins High School in St. Louis, Missouri, was selected for this exciting activity, supported by the Friends of the National Center Education Fund.
Support for the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) and Interagency Ocean Observation Committee (IOOC): COL's support for these two important activities included coordination of the Underwater Glider User Group, a community-based coalition, which held a 140 member workshop in August (Georgia Coward, Cassie Wilson and Nick Rome); coordination of the new Strategic Plan for IOOC (Kruti Desai, Nick Rome, Masha Edmondson, Cassie Wilson and Andrea McCurdy); co-organization of the Optimizing Ocean Observing Networks for Detecting the Coastal Climate Signal workshop (Nick Rome and Cassie Wilson); and organization of IOOS community meetings (Kruti Desai, Jennifer Salerno, Nick Rome, Masha Edmondton) and webinar series for the National Harmful Algal Bloom Network (Masha Edmondson).
NSF Unidata
The NSF Unidata Program receives most of its funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation. Every five years, the program submits a new proposal for core program funding to the NSF, outlining past accomplishments and plans for future activities.
The proposal, Unidata Reimagined: New Approaches to Community Data Services, was reviewed favorably, and funding for NSF Unidata's continued operation has been awarded through mid-2029 (subject to funding availability).
Several current and former NSF Unidata Program Center staff members have been recognized with the American Geophysical Union's 2024 Open Science Recognition Prize for their work as part of a team of Major Contributors to the CF Conventions. The NSF Unidata Program Center's Ethan Davis, along with former NSF Unidata staff members Russ Rew and John Caron, are among a group of 45 individuals from a variety of U.S. and international organizations who are being honored for their contributions to the creation and evolution of the NetCDF Climate and Forecast (CF) Metadata Conventions.
The Meteorological Python Toolkit (MetPy) team: Ryan May (NSF Unidata) and Drew Camron (NSF Unidata). This year's award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Technical Advancement in Support of Science goes to the team behind the Meteorological Python Toolkit, or MetPy, who profoundly impacted not just UCAR but the broader atmospheric science community. Over the past five years, this innovative project replaced aging legacy tools, facilitated modern research and education, and led to a significant increase in the accessibility and efficiency of scientific analysis.
JCSDA
In 2024, JCSDA achieved remarkable milestones across a variety of initiatives. A groundbreaking space weather data assimilation project was launched during a collaborative workshop with academia, industry, and key partner agencies, including NASA, NOAA, the Naval and Air Force Research Labs, the University of Colorado, and COSMIC. Significant progress was made on the R2D2 data store, with the introduction of a new client-server architecture and an industry-standard HTTP REST API. In partnership with NOAA EMC and EPIC, JCSDA released spack-stack 1.8.0, a robust software build environment that now supports 14 HPC platforms and AWS cloud services.
Advancements in JEDI technology also took center stage. SkyLab, JCSDA's innovative testbed, can now ingest real-time observations for continuous data assimilation. A cross-organization code sprint led to standardized model variable names in JEDI, improving interoperability and usability. Additionally, radar and lightning observation operators were integrated into the Unified Forward Operator, and JEDI achieved the capability to perform 2DVar data assimilation for snow depth analysis-a critical step forward.
Finally, JCSDA concluded the Disaster Relief Appropriations Supplemental (DRAS) project with outstanding success. This NOAA-funded initiative accelerated JEDI development for operational production, strengthened R2O and O2R pipelines, and enhanced tools for observational data use, marking a significant accomplishment for the year.
COSMIC
In 2024, the COSMIC program celebrated five years in orbit for the COSMIC-2 constellation, a collaboration with NOAA, the US Space Force, and Taiwan's Space Agency. The team remained deeply involved in the operations, processing, and scientific applications of radio occultation (RO) data. Two notable achievements include publishing a tropospheric ducting detection product and peer-reviewed paper and the operational implementation of ionospheric irregularity geolocation and equatorial plasma bubble map products in partnership with program collaborators.
COSMIC staff also contributed significantly to the international RO Modeling Experiment (ROMEX), which collected nearly all available RO observations from three months in 2022. This effort involved extensive data processing and experiments to assess the impacts of large RO data volumes on global NWP systems. Key contributions included Rick Anthes' leadership as a ROMEX organizing committee member, CDAAC's processing and dissemination of ROMEX data, and COSMIC scientists' work evaluating observation error characteristics and conducting atmospheric science investigations using this unprecedented dataset.
See the full newsletter at UCP Newsletter: A message from Bill Kuo and the 2024 year-end review 🌎
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Brittani Stephene
UCAR, UCP and NSF NCAR
Boulder CO
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