The 13th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations is sponsored by the American Meteorological Society and organized by the Board on Environmental Information Processing Technologies. 

The rate of meaningful research results in the Weather, Water and Climate disciplines and enterprises has been steadily increasing, especially in this era of “big data” and disruptive new technologies. One of the grand challenges for these enterprises is to find which of these meaningful research results can, and the ways and means to, transition these results to operations and applications [R2O] using efficient and cost-effective techniques and technologies. R2O and O2R can provide those critical links in the transition chain of vast information to usable knowledge. The 13R2O Conference will support  extending the chain from R2O to Research-to-Services [R2S] (societal benefits) and the indispensable Services-to-Research [S2R] feedback process. These enabling capabilities directly support the overall theme for this 2023 AMS Annual Meeting – "Data: Driving Science. Informing Decisions. Enriching Humanity.".

The 13R2O Conference will continue to build on the AMS last year’s  Theme “Environmental Security: weather, water and climate for a more secure world” as well as on the 2021 AMS theme, “Strengthening engagement with communities through our science and services” by creating a framework for this coming year’s 2023 theme of the tri-fold impacts of Data - Driving Science. Informing Decisions. and Enriching Humanity. Emphasis will also be given to the data still needed to drive the critical science for weather, water, and climate. This 13R2O Conference will demonstrate how traditional and non-traditional observations, modeling and instrumentation are identified and validated for past, present, and future advances in research, technology and applications that drive transitions to meaningful operations in order to achieve and sustain environmental security for a more secure world. 13R2O is seeking papers describing recent advances in research, technology and applications that will support the Nation’s ability to provide more accurate weather, water, and climate information to decision makers and end users around the world. In addition, the 13R2O Conference supports the national and international imperatives for the effective and efficient transition of research into sustained operations and the feedback process of operations back to research.

Call for Papers

The 13R2O Conference is inviting oral and poster presentations for the following Session Topics:

• Advances in CubeSats and SmallSats for Observations and Measurements of Earth’s Atmosphere Thermodynamic Structure and Processes, Winds, and Water Cycle Processes, and to Improve Climate Monitoring, Weather Forecasting, or Space Weather Prediction
• Advances in Satellite Observations, Earth Science, and Observing Technologies that can complement the Heritage Observation Systems and potentially lead to Advances in Next Generation Observation Systems
• Emerging Technologies for Earth or Space Sciences to Address Unmet, Targeted Needs/Requirements in the Research or Operational Communities
• R2O Progress in GNSS Radio Occultations and Reflectometry for NWP, Ionospheric StudiesPrediction and Ocean Surface Properties
• Advances in R2O & O2R in Analysis and Forecasting that Link Research and Operations to Forecasters’ Needs
• Special Session: The UFS-R2O Project: Advancing NOAA’s Unified Forecast System [UFS] as a Collaborative Community-Based Modeling System for Research and Operations  
• Joint Special Session on EPIC: The Earth Prediction Innovation Center to Accelerate Community-Developed Scientific and Technological Enhancements into the Operational Applications for Numerical Weather Prediction
• Testbeds and Testing & Evaluation to Enable & Accelerate the Transition of Research to Operations to Decision Makers, End Users and the Public in Weather, Water or Climate Applications: Advanced Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Physics Development
• Facilitating Hurricane R2O: NOAA Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program [HFIP]
• Service-to-Research [S2R]: User Engagement Information to Improve NOAA Research, Products and Services: How do we know we are serving well? Panel Discussion [Invited Presentations]
• Service-to-Research [S2R]: User needs to inform NOAA’s Research and Service Delivery. Challenges, Opportunity, and Best Practices
• Public-Private Partnerships; Best Practices & Multi-Community Efforts for the Transition of R2O in the Water and Weather Communities: Panel Discussion [Invited Presentations]
• Natural Language Processing [NLP] Machine Learning [ML] in the Weather Enterprise. Using Machine Learning Techniques to understand users' perspectives and behavior and analyzing unstructured data (text and multi-media data) for improving products & services. 
• A Joint Effort to Improve Subseasonalto-Seasonal [S2S] Prediction
• Significant Roles of Calibration/Validation and Verification in the Transition of Research to Operations to Provide the Science-to-Operations-to-Societal Benefits
• Advancements in Operational and Scientific Sea Ice Applications
• Special Topics in R2O: Building Successful R2X Collaborations, Understanding Collaboration Challenges, Opportunities, and Successes, and Highlighting Knowledge Transfer in NOAA’s Transition Practices, Processes, and Policies

Joint Sessions

• Advances in CubeSats and SmallSats for Observations and Measurements of Earth Atmosphere Thermodynamic Structure and Processes, Winds, and Water Cycle Processes, and to Improve Climate Monitoring,  Weather Forecasting, or Space Weather Prediction
  (Joint between the 13th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations and the 19th Annual Symposium on Operational Environmental Satellite Systems)
• Considerations and Utilization of CubeSat and SmallSat Sensors, Platforms, and Observations for a Comprehensive Operational Environmental Satellite System
  (Joint between the 19th Annual Symposium on Operational Environmental Satellite Systems and the 13th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations)
• Joint Special Session on EPIC: The Earth Prediction Innovation Center to Accelerate Community-Developed Scientific and Technological Enhancements into the Operational Applications for Numerical Weather Prediction (Joint between the 13th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations and the Second Symposium on Earth Prediction Innovation and Community Modeling)
• National and International Program Overviews for Environmental Satellites (Invited) (Joint between the 19th Annual Symposium on Operational Environmental Satellite Systems, the 13th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations, and  the 11th AMS Symposium on the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation)
• Advanced Products and Technologies That Can Be Used Now and Their Path to Quasi-operational or Sustained Operations: The View From The Dry and The Wet Side (Joint between the 39th Conference on Environmental Information Processing Technologies, and the 13th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations)
• FAIR and Open Data and Software within the Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences to Support Transparent, Reusable and Efficient Research and Operations (Joint between the 39th Conference on Environmental Information Processing Technologies, the 26th Conference of  Atmospheric Librarians International, the 22nd Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Science, the 13th Symposium on Advances in Modeling and Analysis Using Python, the 13th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations and the Committee on Open Environmental Information Services)

Special Event: Research Operations Nexus (RON) Meetup – Honoring the Legacy of Ronald W. Przybylinski

The Research Operations Nexus (RON) Meetup provides the opportunity for an interactive discussion between research and operational meteorologists, modelers, hydrologists, and social scientists. During the event, groups rotate through a number of tables in speed-mentoring fashion to discuss a variety of opportunities for sharing ongoing research and operational needs that could benefit forecast and warning operations. The stations would include a wide range of topics such as Winter Weather, Supercells and Tornadoes, Communicating Risk, Probabilistic Forecast Generation, Impact-Based Decision Support Services, etc. The goal is simple: to build and develop new relationships based on shared interests that span beyond traditional barriers between research and operations. The meetup would have ten tables that participants could rotate through to share ideas during three separate interactive discussion periods over a two-hour period. 

The idea for RON meetups was inspired by the memory of Ron Przybylinski. Ron was a former Science and Operations Officer (SOO) of the National Weather Service Forecast Office in St. Louis, Missouri and he left the legacy of his unending motivation to interconnect weather operations and research in strong, meaningful, and enduring ways. Ron was a master in the transition zone, or nexus, of operations and research. Research interactions with Ron led to large field projects that provided great benefit to both the operational and research communities. 

This year’s RON meetup is held jointly with 13th Conference on Research to Operations

Because seating is limited, additional registration (at no cost) is required here.

Chairs:

• Randall Graham
  • NOAA/NWS/Central Region Headquarters, Kansas City MO USA
• Kandis Boyd
  • Chesapeake Bay Program Office, Annapolis MD USA

Facilitators:

• Randall Graham
  • NOAA/NWS/Central Region Headquarters, Kansas City MO USA
• Vijay Tallapragada
  • NOAA/NWS/NCEP/EMC, College Park, MD USA

Student Award Opportunities

The 13th Conference on the Transition of Research to Operations and the 19th Annual Symposium on Operational Environmental Satellite Systems are pleased to co-host Student Presentation Awards at the AMS Centennial Annual Meeting. Award certificates and cash prizes will be given for the best Student oral and poster presentations. Students who wish to be considered for these awards should indicate so when submitting their abstract. In order to be considered for an award, the Student must be the lead and presenting author.
The basis for an award will be:
          a.) Originality of the work, 
          b.) Quality of the presentation (oral and poster/slides) and the Student’s delivery.

Student and Early Career Professionals Speed Networking Event

The 13th Conference on the Transition of Research to Operations will be co-hosting with other Conferences and Symposia the 9th Annual Speed Networking Event [9SPNE]. The Event allows students and early career professionals to network with mentors via “speed networking” where the mentors (meteorology and allied discipline professionals) roam between tables at set intervals introducing the students and early professionals to a wide array of professions in the field of meteorology. The speed networking will include a social with light hors d'oeuvres, providing a great time for open networking. This allows the students, the early career professionals, and the mentors of their selected discipline to have extended conversations after their speed-mentoring.

Conference Contacts

For additional information, please contact the program chairs: 
Martin Yapur ([email protected]), Robert Bauer ([email protected]),
Changyong Cao ([email protected]), Eric Fetzer ([email protected]), Sundararaman G. Gopalakrishnan ([email protected]),
Young-Joon Kim ([email protected]), Chandra Kondragunta ([email protected]), Eric Miller ([email protected]), John Pereira ([email protected]), Vijay Tallapragada ([email protected]), Thanh Vo Dinh ([email protected]), and Stephen Mango ([email protected])