Earth Day is a time to stop, focus, celebrate and appreciate the planet — it’s the only one we have. The American Meteorological Society does that every day via our members in weather, water and climate sectors. We did it in our successful AMS Annual Meeting in January with a turnout of thousands, despite a winter storm, and we did it in our recent 37th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology.
Since the start of the year, AMS responded to the Dear Colleague Letter request from the National Science Foundation regarding the potential dismantling of NCAR. We continue efforts in supporting protection of radio frequency spectrum for weather and science purposes, while we follow with deep concern the removal of the climate science chapter from the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. AMS has gone on the record with a response to the decision to rollback the EPA’s Endangerment finding.
Now, we face another Presidential Budget Request with huge cuts to science agencies. That’s surely to be discussed at our annual Summer Community Meeting and Washington DC Forum at the end of July, and then at our Madison Summit in Wisconsin in August.
AMS Council is engaging in long-term and strategic planning with our new Executive Director, Dr. Amanda Staudt. Welcome again, Amanda! We’ve got challenges but also opportunities ahead of us to support and advance the technologies, applications, and services of the atmospheric sciences and related fields for the betterment of society.
I’m Alan Sealls, 2026 AMS President. We’ll keep you posted with these quarterly updates of what’s happening across AMS, why it matters, and what’s ahead. As always, we welcome your input.
Happy Earth Day!
