The AMS 96th Annual Meeting 10–14 January, 2016 New Orleans, LA

Make plans to join us for the AMS 96th Annual Meeting. Each year, more than 3,000 scientists, researchers, educators, students, and other professionals from across the weather, water, and climate community  come together to share, learn, and collaborate.

96th AMS Annual Meeting Theme

Earth System Science in Service to Society

The primary idea that motivated the words above is to bring the many parts of AMS into a common theme.  The “Earth System Science” theme emphasizes that the growing knowledge of the academic and research communities about our Earth system is a strength of AMS.  AMS brings together the physical, chemical, and biological study of the Earth, allowing important decisions to be made by policy makers and the public.  An example of the physical domain was the forecast of Hurricane Sandy, which was predominantly atmospheric and ocean model driven. An air quality forecast would exemplify the chemical and physical domains.  The fate of global carbon illustrates the overarching importance that includes physics, chemistry, and biology.  All of Earth’s biology participates in the carbon cycle, in which the chemistry of the ocean and atmosphere is of crucial importance, and which are controlled by the physical ocean and atmosphere. The Earth system also includes the human-centered “domains of action”: (1) Observing, (2) Analysis and research leading to understanding, (3) Modeling and prediction, and (4) Social sciences – how people deal with Earth. The AMS integrates these different disciplines in a common intellectual and operational framework with an Earth system emphasis – I believe that the AMS is the scientific society where the whole Earth System fits most comfortably.

The second half of the theme title connects research to the benefits that society writ large gains from our science.  “Service to Society” includes information services, such as operational weather prediction, provision of timely and accurate weather literally at our fingertips, and scientific assessments such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that help guide society’s actions.  It also includes the growing climate services from programs like NIDIS and the efforts to help society mitigate and adapt to climate variability and change. “Service to Society” explicitly evokes the integrated and complementary government and commercial enterprise that the AMS has done so much to foster over the last decade.  The strong AMS contingent of media professionals – the people who stand before TV cameras and explain what the coming storm will do – are surely at the forefront of serving society, as are the critical efforts of the National Weather Service and military weather services.  “Service to Society” also effectively uses social science to make the benefits and dissemination of our information most beneficial to the public. This meeting will address the effort to improve communications of geophysical threats to the public.

Finally – this theme conveys the flow inherent in the nearly 100-year history of the AMS.  Some people call it research to operations (R2O), but I like to call it “Science to Service.”   AMS has a proud history of making a positive difference in the lives of our citizens by continually making the advances of science available to the public and policy makers.  The 2016 meeting will bring these two great endeavors together.

—Alexander E. "Sandy" MacDonald, AMS President

Convention Center

Registration, AMS Info Desk, Technical Sessions, Exhibits, Posters, Town Hall Meetings, Awards Banquet, Events

Ernest N. Morial Convention Center

900 Convention Center Blvd.

New Orleans, LA 70130

Hotels & Travel

Reservation blocks are now open!

Please only book a room if you know you will use it. If you need to cancel, please do so promptly to allow others to take your spot and to avoid penalty fees that might be incurred by AMS.

We encourage you to make your reservation early, as rooms may sell out. The final date to make a reservation at the group rate is December 16th. However, the blocks may sell out earlier and the group rate will no longer be available.

We urge you to book at an AMS-contracted hotel since revenue from sleeping rooms helps offset other meeting costs and is passed down to attendees in keeping registration rates to a minimum. Make your reservations early since space is limited. Be sure to indicate that you are with the American Meteorological Society when making reservations to receive AMS special rates.

*Please note that all rooms booked in an AMS block will be $160 (plus applicable taxes and fees) per night.  This rate is the prevailing government per diem for New Orleans.

**IMPORTANT UPDATE** Some attendees have been receiving calls and emails from housing groups (such as Global Travel Partners or National Travel Associates) offering to make hotel reservations for our meeting. Please be aware these are NOT AMS approved or contracted vendors. We did not ask them to contact anyone on our behalf and did not give them a list of our attendees or exhibitors.

These groups are claiming to be able to get attendees rates at our AMS hotel blocked hotels for less than our special AMS rates. This is not true. We work hard here at AMS to get the lowest possible rate for the hotels in our room blocks. We do not require you to book rooms within our block, but it certainly helps us secure these special rates for future meetings.