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2014 AMS Annual Meeting

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Superstorm Sandy and the Built Environment: New Perspectives, Opportunities, and Tool

Call for Papers

Superstorm Sandy was historic in many ways: its impact on the heavily populated mid-Atlantic region, its anomalous size and track, the accuracy of its forecasts, and the unique challenges communicating the hazard. It will likely be one of the costliest and deadliest storms of the 21st century. Economists have offered early projections in the $50-100 billion range as a result of damage to infrastructure, insurance claims, and other costs. Such damage, coupled with significant loss of life, reflects that our society is a “built environment”  increasingly connected by cyber, energy, water, transportation, health, social, and other infrastructures; yet increasingly vulnerable to future extreme weather events. Irrespective of attribution, Sandy represented a significant intersection point that combines scientific inquiry, technological advances, societal implications, and public awareness.

The theme for the 2014 AMS Annual Meeting is “Extreme Weather - Climate and the Built Environment: New perspectives, opportunities, and tools.” Superstorm Sandy represents a real-world manifestation of the theme from multiple viewpoints including observations, prediction, climate, response, and communications. The Conference on Superstorm Sandy and the Built Environment: New perspectives, opportunities, and tools, sponsored by the American Meteorological Society, will be held at AMS 2014 Annual Meeting.

This conference will focus on three complementary elements of the event:  (1) prediction and preparedness; (2) response and recovery; and, particularly, (3) new perspectives, opportunities, tools, and imperatives for the future built environment. Contributions are solicited on all aspects of the weather-related societal impacts caused by Hurricane and Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy, including: storm evolution and prediction; the emerging research topics that resulted from this event, how information regarding the storm was communicated to the public through broadcast and social media; how lives, property and infrastructure were impacted; how the local, state and federal communities prepared to and responded to the storm; and best practices and lessons learned. Multiple panel and Q&A sessions are being planned. This session solicits research or applied papers addressing any aspect of the following topics:

  • Meteorological, hydrological, and oceanic processes
  • Observing systems and numerical weather prediction
  • Linkages to climate variability/climate change
  • Infrastructure and impacts, including coastal wind and storm surge, rain, snow, and inland wind impacts
  • Communication and response, including communicating the threat to the public through broadcast media, following the storm through social media, and storm response in New York and New Jersey
  • Hazards, human dimensions, and future societal, infrastructural, and operational implications

For additional information, please contact the program chair, Tanja Fransen at [email protected] or 406-228-2850. 

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