2024 Jamposium FAQs Answered!

The Weather Band Jamposium is back! From February 29 to March 1, 2024, join professionals and enthusiasts alike to learn about a number of topics surrounding weather, water, and climate in a series of webinars and associated discussions. The topics are chosen by you, our Weather Band members.  

We talked with Melissa Griffin, the incoming Weather Band Committee Chair, to hear more about this great annual event. 

What is the Jamposium?
“The Weather Band Jamposium is a chance for those in our community to engage with experts in our field and have an interactive discussion about the research they're working on, events that have taken place, or some of the latest science coming out of the broader AMS community. I look at the Jamposium as a way to open those doors to what happens in the AMS annual meeting, which takes place at the end of January and brings together the weather, water, and climate community to talk about the state of our science. We hear about so much research happening in all the different institutions and universities and within our federal, state, and private agencies, and we want to give people a sneak peek into what's going on within the weather, water, and climate community.”

What are the topics?
Citizen Science: “The idea of this particular symposium is to meet experts and see for those who volunteer in citizen science projects, how their data is used, and how it does make a difference.”
2024 Solar Eclipse: “The Solar Eclipse symposium is going to be about ways to participate in citizen science around the solar eclipse in April, along with learning about research that has been done in the past and with previous solar eclipses, such as the one that happened in 2017.” 
Science Communication: “The idea is to talk about science communication with a focus on media bias, sensational headlines, ways to communicate the science, or how the science is being communicated.” 
Climate Change: “A session moderated by Bernadette Woods Placky from Climate Central will focus on examining extreme events, climate change, and the National Climate Assessment.”
Forecasting/Modeling: “We’re actually going to be looking at numerical weather prediction!”
Recent Extreme Events: “The session on extreme weather events will focus on some of the more significant weather events that impacted people in the last year and touch upon any recent events.” 

How were the topics picked?
“The topics were chosen based on interest that we received from those who had participated in last year's Jamposium, but also some of the interests we had in our webinars and our digital content throughout the year. So we listened to members of the Weather Band community, and tried to provide them with information that they were interested in.”

 Why should you attend?
“My hope for the Jamposium is that those people who participate walk away with additional knowledge, enthusiasm, and curiosity for the field. That they find something in one of the talks that sparks an additional interest, and they'll then go look for additional research or go back and look through the content that we've already offered over the last few years to learn more about a particular topic. I hope that more people will get involved with the Weather Band and participate in the discussion forums. There's so much information and many good threads within the forum that go further than what we can discuss in two days.

One of the things that I want to see out of the Jamposium is that people just continue to be excited about what's going on within the community and see how those within AMS are continuing to move forward with new research. This is not a stagnant field in any way, shape, or form. There's constant movement within all walks of academia and federal and private sectors to improve what we're doing in the fields with weather, climate, and water.”

If you have any more questions about the Jamposium, feel free to email Gideon Alegado ([email protected]). We can’t wait to see you at the 2024 Weather Band Jamposium!