Introduction
This is about part of my journey with meteorology and meteorology education. Clouds are the palaces in the sky. They’re the most beautiful palaces I’ve ever seen.
The Start of a Passion
I never wanted to be a scientist growing up. For reasons too embarrassing to tell, I wanted to be an architect. No, it was because of Bob the Builder. Going into high school, I developed an interest in physics. I was never interested in science before physics. For some reason, I found being able to find the velocity of something given a couple of variables was really cool. I still love it. There were a couple of reasons why I remained interested in Physics. For one, Ms. Stanek, my high school Physics teacher. And two, Vsauce. Ms. Stanek was generally really nice and always inspired me to keep going in class. Vsauce made interesting videos about many different topics in physics, ranging from how the earth moves to conservation of angular momentum. Of course, both of these things are related. That’s something really cool about science to me. Many fundamental concepts, whether in physics, meteorology or any other natural science, relate to more complex problems. For example, convergence (air converging together and rising) is something you learn about fairly early on in meteorology but it plays an important role in the all the rain in Florida during the summer and even in development of hurricanes.
Speaking of hurricanes, that’s where my journey into meteorology started. Hurricane Sandy in 2012 was very memorable for a lot of people. For me, it was the first hurricane I remember. I remember sitting on the couch as a ten year old, watching the broadcast meteorologists inform the public on the major flooding in downtown New York. I actually got to see damage in person. Our youth group went on a mission trip to New Jersey to demolish houses that were damaged by the hurricane. In 2017, we went down to Fayetteville, NC to repair houses damaged by floods from Hurricane Matthew. Both of these mission trips helped me understand the importance of informing the public about the impacts of weather and the pain that people go through after a severe weather event. That same year, 2017, was also extremely historic for Hurricanes in the United States. Hurricane Harvey produced a record breaking amount of rain in Texas, Hurricane Maria caused billions of dollars of damage in Puerto Rico, and Hurricane Irma blew through Florida. I could not get off of the National Hurricane Center website. After the experience of multiple mission trips and constantly looking at hurricanes, I knew what I wanted to do. The summer 2019 Architecture camp at UNC Charlotte turned me away from architecture. Yet, I had hurricanes. When applying to UNC Asheville, I knew I wanted to become a meteorologist.
Fortunately, I got in. I wouldn’t be on the fifth floor of Ponder, writing this, and comparing what I see outside to what is on the radar. I wouldn’t be looking at the weather data collected by our department’s weather tower up by the observatory, and I wouldn’t be looking at past weather data from the Rhodes-Robinson tower. I wouldn’t be daydreaming about why the weather is the way it is, every day. I wouldn’t be thinking about how our angular velocity formulas in Physics could maybe be applied to roll clouds in front of supercells or how convective available potential energy (CAPE, a parameter that helps in forecasting/studying severe storms) has to do with work and energy, topics we learned about in physics class. All that said (please excuse my nerdy ranting), getting into UNC Asheville was extremely important to the development of my interest in meteorology. The Atmospheric Sciences department here is amazing.
Every Monday and Wednesday after Calculus II, I walk to the same corner of Rhodes-Robinson, reminding myself that the department is a nerd’s paradise. It’s the place where I will learn to become a scientist. The first thing I see is the weather display, with the current conditions up at the department weather station, a Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) loop, and a National Weather Service forecast for the next week in Asheville. Sometimes, a video of a tornado pops up. The video is of the 2013 Severe Weather Field Experience, which helps students see what they’re learning about in real life. In the background, I usually hear the constant whirring of the… air conditioning? If I try hard enough, I can smell the wooden desks and shelves that litter the area, those of Dr. Alex Huang. Dr. Huang taught at UNC Asheville for 35 years, and retired last semester. Things are changing. Then again, both the blue board with the ATMS department and the two main classrooms still greet the occasional visitor. One of those classrooms, Room 239, was the room for my introductory class, where I gained even more of an appreciation for meteorology. Turning away from the wall with the classrooms and the weather display, I see the professors’ offices. Dr. Miller, Dr. Hennon, and Dr. Godfrey. With the professors I usually talk about random weather phenomena, or even about what happened on the weekend. Walking down the hall, I see the pictures of all the past years’ Atmospheric Science seniors with the professors, and the research lab. There is also the hall for computer science, serving as a constant reminder that computers have been and will continue to be used heavily in meteorology.
Now that I’ve described the department, well, why is it important? Perhaps it’s because some of the American Meteorology Society meetings occur there. It’s the place where I feel at home, or where I love to learn and develop a passion. Maybe that corner is important because I already have memories there. Sometimes, student research is presented in the hallways. One day, I hope to have my own research stand out there. It’s the place where I and many others will learn to become a scientist. Wait, I already started learning, in Room 239.
Exciting a Love of Learning
I will definitely never forget my introductory class. For one, it introduced me to the way meteorology classes at UNCA will be taught and, of course, the class helped me develop a passion for meteorology. One of my favorite parts of the class was our weekly weather analysis. Every Monday, Dr. Miller went over the weather events from the past weekend in Asheville and why those events occurred. As an example, radiation inversion near the surface was a topic often mentioned, explaining the really low minimum temperatures at night. Usually the weather in Asheville brought up an opportunity to apply what we were learning in class to real world scenarios. One of these scenarios had to do the remnants of Hurricane Delta, a couple days after it made landfall. In class, we were learning about how to tell where the surface low pressure system was based on the direction of upper air winds. On Monday, October 12th, 2020, I could tell that the low pressure system remaining from Hurricane Delta was to the west of UNCA because the upper air winds were moving to the North (bent to the right by the Coriolis force). To me, this is how a meteorology class should be taught. It is so cool to see the things you are learning about in class happen right in front of your eyes, well, right in front of your eyes on a surface map or a picture of a balloon sounding.
At the end of the year, our final project was a weather forecast for the next week at a location of our choice. This project required that we use terminology that we learned in class and that the student understood why a certain type of weather was predicted. This project’s format is in line with what research on the general meteorology curriculum states. A 2014 article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society states, “… many class projects are done in regard to research, applications, or a combination of the two” (Croft, et al.). The forecasting project in our class also presented a potential real world scenario for the student, where one could acquire forecasting skills needed by future employers such as the National Weather Service.
Acquiring skills was not the only goal of my intro to meteorology class, nor should it be. The goal of classes and university programs in meteorology has always been to transform the student into an active producer of knowledge rather than a passive consumer (Croft, et al.). Many times during our class, Dr. Miller asked questions about the past section of reading. This would test our knowledge on the subject matter, making sure we (the students) would more fully understand the concepts. Understanding the concepts meant I could produce, or reproduce, what we learned in class to others. Even now, I often try to explain meteorological phenomena to my friends, who are not in meteorology. Last semester, for example, I talked to my friend Ryan about the formation of land breezes and the compression/warming of air parcels as they go down the leeward side of mountains. To explain this phenomena, I used an analogy about a bike pump. As you push down on the pump and compress the air within it, the pump gets warmer. This class not only helped me learn about meteorology, but it got me interested in explaining it to others. Which, coincidentally, helped me reveal misconceptions about my own understanding of concepts, leading me to ask more questions of my professors.
Subjects in atmospheric sciences can be complex and the field has recently been increasingly complex (Croft, et al.). The teaching methods mentioned here, like class projects, simulating real world scenarios and reaffirming the students’ understanding of the subject are just some potential solutions to the growing problem. Another solution and a way of preparing students for the future could be getting hands on experience with weather instruments. It is important that every student learn how to use meteorological instruments. I have some experience with how they are used at UNCA. Our department has a weather tower (Figure 1), with many instruments collecting real time data used in classes and used in helping students understand how the instruments work. The data from the station is displayed on our ATMS department website and on the display TV in the department. Not only does the UNCA department have a weather tower, but there is a whole class devoted to teaching students about meteorology instruments. I talked to Dr. Godfrey, the professor of the class, to learn more about the class. He mentioned that students have to build their own weather instruments, making sure they work and that data can be collected from them (Godfrey, personal communication, April 1st, 2021). This experience ensures that students are able to fully understand how instruments work. In a future position, a student will have to know how to work with instruments in order to collect observations. These observations will serve as the empirical data used in forecasting and research. From knowing this, it is easy to see why UNCA’s ownership of a weather tower and devotion to teaching people about instruments is extremely important.
Becoming a Scientist
All of what I have mentioned so far in this essay has been about my experience with the department here and a couple of examples of how UNCA prepares students for the future. Although I have looked at some ways students learn to become meteorologists and prepare for a future job, there are still important questions to ask. Are meteorologists even scientists? If so, what else, beyond what I have mentioned, needs to be done for a student to become a scientist? This first question I have already answered multiple times, but not explicitly. The answer is yes. In a June 2020 article for Forbes magazine, Dr. Marshall Shepherd, the current director of the UGA’s Atmospheric Sciences department, answered this same question. After looking through the general curriculum, which includes thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, physics, calculus, and after looking at multiple definitions of what a scientist is, Shepherd concluded that yes, meteorologists are actual scientists (Shepherd). Of course, this is biased. However, any one can tell you that a meteorology major takes plenty of science and math classes. At UNCA, I know that us meteorology majors have to take the second most math classes out of any major.
Dr. Shepherd also states in his short essay, “My robust body of scientific papers maybe reaches hundreds or thousands of narrowly focused readers. My scientist colleagues on TV or in a National Weather Service office reach potentially millions of people. They are not simply practitioners. They are scientists serving society” (Shepherd). What Shepherd says here not only provides more evidence that meteorologists are scientists with research papers, but it also reveals a misconception that people have when they think of meteorologists. Meteorologists are not just “on TV.” Whenever I tell someone that I want to become a meteorologist, they always ask “so you’re going to be on TV?” There are so many fields beyond broadcast meteorology. I could go into research, forecasting, model development, or even working on instruments like the doppler radar. No matter which field I go into, I want to be a scientist.
Despite my exploration of the general meteorology class curriculum and personal examples of class experience, I have not covered everything needed to become a scientist. During our interview, Dr. Miller mentioned something that may be helpful in figuring what else is needed. “Science, whether it’s on the applied side, or operations or theoretical, [science] progress really relies on teamwork to be successful” (Miller, personal communication, April 1st, 2021). I need to make sure, with help from the university, that I know how to work in teams with a diverse group of people. I can apply to internships offered by federal entities like NOAA and the National Weather Service, who try to encourage diversity in the field. I need to learn how to write like a scientist, speak and present in front of large groups of colleagues and solve problems that no one has ever had to deal with (Miller). Learning these things, either through my university, or through internships, will help me in becoming an effective scientist. However, before thinking about this, I must remember that becoming a meteorologist starts with a passion for the weather and a love of learning. That’s where I started.
I started with admiring the snow from our back porch when I was 15, being confused about why the rain was in the parking lot but not over us in the grass during soccer practice, wondering what caused the sudden downpour of rain in the school parking lot in elementary school. I started with curiosity and wonder. I started with staring at the cumulus clouds, the palaces, on long road trips. Now, I’m on my way to becoming a scientist. I know how the snow formed (the Bergeron process) and why it continued falling (favorable vertical temperature profile under a warm front). I know why the rain fell suddenly (downdraft from the cloud). This is why I love meteorology. It connects and explains memories from my childhood. It’s my passion and I will never stop loving it.
Works Cited
Interviews
- With Dr. Miller (after college, becoming a scientist, federal involvement):
- What is the importance of a great university department (great opportunities, experienced professors, professional equipment) for new students going into the field? What do federal organizations do to get more people (a diverse group of people) into Meteorology?
Foundations:
- The primary way a department prepares a student is providing the necessary foundation of knowledge. So that means taking core classes, which is very prone to checklists, something every student has to handle. What is this curriculum made up of? “It’s generally driven by what the federal government defines as courses someone has to have if they are going to be hired as a meteorologist at the federal level.” Therefore, the school has to offer these courses in order to offer students the opportunity of getting a job at the federal level.
Skill Development:
- There is a lot more that the university has to do in order to help students for life after college. It is important for the university to encourage skill development. For example, students should be able to write like a scientist, speak and present in front of large groups of colleagues and solve problems that no one has ever had to deal with in order to become effective scientists.
Providing Opportunities:
- The university and department should also help the student with applying and interviewing for jobs after college as well as opening students’ eyes to opportunities out there. Graduates from the Atmospheric Sciences department really help with this part as they can let the professors know when positions are available in a certain field.
Working as a Team:
- Within the department course, professors and the department are also responsible for helping develop team approaches to solving problems. “Science, whether it’s on the applied side, or operations or theoretical, [science] progress really relies on teamwork to be successful.” One of the questions asked on recommendation is how well does this person work within a diverse group of people. Being able to work in diverse groups is a skill valued by employers, so the department has to prepare students for working in a team.
Federal Involvement:
- Federal entities like the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS) can try to encourage diversity in our field by funding research experience and internships. Often there will be problems where one person raised in a certain culture will be stumped and someone from a different background will know what to do.
- At a younger age, organizations like the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) and NOAA and NWS do a lot of public outreach. “I think there’s a real challenge in our field in that when you tell someone you’re a meteorologist, they automatically think that you’re going to be on TV.” This shows that there is a poor understanding of what meteorologists actually do. The organizations mentioned try to highlight the types of jobs you can have. For example, the NOAA Hurricane Hunters give tours of the plane that flies into hurricanes.
- With Dr. Godfrey (about the weather tower):
- Information about the UNCA weather station and meteorology instruments class. What was the experience of building it like? How does your meteorology instruments class help prepare students for a future position, say with the National Weather Service?
Question 1
- It was really fun to build. Dr. Godfrey was given a startup package (some money) to spend at UNCA. Dr. Godfrey’s PHD dealt with instruments. So, he bought a bunch of weather instruments. Dr. Godfrey had to find a place to put. He tried connecting with Balsam Mountain Reserve (which went oust business during negotiations of course), Biltmore estate, but never heard back after a couple of emails. So, all of it was in a closet in Robinson hall.
- He talked to some students, told them if they could find a place to find it, you can build it. They found a place: the observatory. After getting permission from the University and Astronomy department and paying a bunch of money to get an engineering analysis ($5,000 dollars). Dr. Godfrey hired some students to build it and figure out how to communicate with the tower. Rolling some instruments (anemometers, thermometers) down the hallway and figuring everything out, they had a research ready tower. Dr. Godfrey talked about a connection with Econet.
Question 2
- The ATMS department has $30,000 worth of instrumentation. In the instrumentation class, students get to build their own weather station.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dr. Godfrey and Dr. Miller for spending the time to do an interview and for all their support for me during my Freshman year at UNCA.