Minutes from Board of
the Urban Environment Meeting:
1. Report on 5th Urban Environment Symposium.
a) funding for Special Sessions – we will fund Prof. Plate’s registration out of Chair Funds. Walt Dabberdt will check to see if Chair funds from the Seattle Symposium may still be accessed to supplement the student paper competition.
b) student paper competition – 26 student competitors; prize money to be distributed as judges see fit with total value dependent on outcome of 1a)
c) CMOS
(Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society) support for the Symposium –
split equally between 4 eligible applicants
2. Planning for 6th Urban Environment
Symposium (tentatively 2006):
Board Members were generally in favour of
a) Meeting
at the annual meeting – to increase exposure of urban meteorology
b) Meeting
jointly with BL&T if possible.
The next (6th)
Symposium on the Urban Environment will occur at the 2006 Annual Meeting in
Applications of Air Pollution will
also be meeting there, and Boundary Layers and Turbulence have agreed to look
into organizing a special symposium (not their full meeting). Branko Kosovic (LLNL) is
organizing on behalf of BL&T.
Conference (co?)-chairs. I would like to rotate off. I recommend the co-chair approach with a 2 conference commitment to gain experience and preserve continuity. The conference organizer does not need to be from BUE, but it probably helps if they are on BUE.
Conference co-chairs: to be determined.
3. BUE Expansion.
Committee members favoured an expansion of BUE by 2
members.
Terms would be staggered so that we add one to class of (term ending) 2006
and one for 2007.
Ching and Dabberdt have put
themselves forward for re-nomination, and the chair supports this nomination.
Board expansion has gone before AMS
Council. The STAC commissioner has yet
to inform me of any results.
4. BUE Chair
I rotate off BUE in April 2005 – having served two terms. Perhaps this is an opportune time to elect a
new chair?
I will deal with this separately via
email to BUE.
5. Availability and Use of Urban
Morphological Databases (Jason Ching).
Susan Avery suggested that the AMS Sponsored “Community Summit” may present an
appropriate means to facilitate a meeting of users, including academic,
government, and private sector interests of Urban Morphological Data. This
was to be included as an agenda item for the AMS Executive Board Meeting in
October. Steve Hanna has agreed
to help me with other facilitations of BUE on the National Database activities.
6. Other initiatives to be undertaken by BUE (either in the context of the
symposium or separately)
a)
The Chair will follow up with Brad Colman on the
status of our current fellow nomination. Report to AMS council due in October.
b)
Jason Ching has agreed to
look into the possibility of a new urban-related award (Helmut Landsberg award?)
Note: IAUC is also looking at developing some awards including: Lowry Award, MacDonald
Award, Luke Howard Award
Jason will continue looking into this
with assistance from Walt Dabberdt.
c)
Bob Bornstein has agreed to look for potential
nominees from the urban field for other awards given by the AMS (e.g. BUE votes
on the Outstanding Achievement in Biometeorology Award – and Tim Oke won this award recently). Deadline is 1 May.
At least two names have been suggested by BUE members, chair to re-initiate
procedure in the spring.
d) The
Chair will look into transferring and updating the web information on BUE to an
AMS hosted site (it is currently still hosted by Sue Grimmond
at IU). I have re-done our web
pages. They are currently on my home page (http://publish.uwo.ca/~javoogt under “service”
or use http://publish.uwo.ca/~javoogt/AMS_Urban_board.htm
).
If the form/content is approved I will ask the AMS to change the link.
e) The
Chair will ask Brad Colman to look into further including BUE in AMS published
materials (our Board status means that currently we seem to have been left off
of lists where we should appear in printed and web based information). I would like to see AMS to allow “urban” to
be identified as a specialty on the annual member registration form.
Our profile is improving, but this is an
on-going issue.
Note that Dr. Ronald D. McPherson, Executive Director, American Meteorological
Society is speaking at the CHALLENGES IN URBAN METEOROLOGY FORUM. “Perspectives
on Interdisciplinary Scope and Approaches to Urban Meteorology”
f)
The Chair will follow up with Brad Colman on the list
of most appropriate STACs to be included as
ex-officio for BUE.
I have done this twice but have not yet received an answer. See the current list on the web site. Chair
will continue to follow up on this and report back to BUE.
g) A
list of urban climate related conferences will be included on the IAUC web site
(also accessible through
www.urban-climate.org)
in order for members to better plan travel schedules. I will provide a link from the AMS BUE site
to this information. Linked via the ams
website.