earth science

Weather and Society Integrated Studies

Weather and Society Integrated Studies is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Weather and Society Integrated Studies rather than just read about it. In short: Weather and Society Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is an international movement that is changing the weather enterprise by integrating social science into meteorological research and practice. WAS*IS was formed to build an interdisciplinary community of practitioners, researchers and decision makers collaborating to effectively understand how to improve weather warnings, incorporate societal impacts into weather foreca…

Key takeaways

Weather and Society Integrated Studies belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Weather and Society Integrated Studies to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Weather and Society Integrated Studies from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Weather and Society Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is an international movement that is changing the weather enterprise by integrating social science into meteorological research and practice. WAS*IS was formed to build an interdisciplinary community of practitioners, researchers and decision makers collaborating to effectively understand how to improve weather warnings, incorporate societal impacts into weather forecasts, and use social science tools and methods. WAS*IS is changing the culture from what WAS to what IS the future of integrated studies. WAS*IS has 276 representatives from the United States, Canada, China, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, the Netherlands, and numerous Caribbean countries. WAS*ISers come from many parts of the weather enterprise, including meteorology, emergency management, hydrology, geography, climatology, psychology, sociology, economics, ecology, education and anthropology. Workshops were held in Boulder, Colorado on August 8–15, 2008, August 6–14, 2009, August 5–13, 2010, and August 4–12, 2011. An advanced workshop was held in Norman, Oklahoma September 15–17, 2008. The first WAS*IS Caribbean was held June 6–10, 2010 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

History WAS*IS was established in 2005 at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) located in Boulder, Colorado. WAS*IS was founded by Dr. Eve Gruntfest, a geographer at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, and Julie Demuth, an atmospheric scientist at NCAR, as part of NCAR's Societal Impacts Program. Dr. Gruntfest was inspired by the comments of physical scientists she met during her career who were interested in integrating meteorology and social science but were unsure how to do the work, and did not know anyone else involved in societal impacts research or practice. WAS*IS has received support from the US Weather Research Program, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA, NCAR's Societal Impacts Program, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, and NCAR's Institute for the Study of Society and Environment. Additional workshop support has come from the University of Oklahoma, Monash University Sustainability Institute, ARC Network for Earth System Science, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and Emergency Management Australia.

References

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Quarterly Report Archived 2007-07-10 at the Wayback Machine American Meteorological Society’s 87th Annual Conference American Meteorological Society’s 88th Annual Conference NOAA Research European Severe Storms Laboratory

Further reading Barnes, L. R., E. C. Gruntfest, M, H. Hayden, D. M. Schultz, and C. Benight, 2007: False alarms and close calls: A conceptual model of warning accuracy. Weather Forecast., 22, 1140-1147. Demuth, J.L., E.C. Gruntfest, R.E. Morss, S. Drobot and J.K. Lazo, 2007: WAS*IS: Building a Community for Integrating Meteorology and Social Science. Bull. Amer. Met.Soc., 88(11), 1729–1737. Gladwin, H., J.K. Lazo, B.H. Morrow, W.G. Peacock, and H.E. Willoughby. 2007: Social Science Research Needs for the Hurricane Forecast and Warning System. Natural Hazards Rev., 8(3), 87-95. Archived 2013-07-20 at the Wayback Machine League, C.E., W.Diaz, B. Philips, E.J. Bass, K. Kloesel and A. Gessner. 2010: Emergency manager decision-making and tornado warning communication. Meteorological Applications, 17(2), 163-172.

External links WAS*IS Website Archived 2022-08-29 at the Wayback Machine Dr. Eve Gruntfest Archived 2013-08-29 at the Wayback Machine

Illustrations

WAS*IS Logo

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Weather and Society Integrated Studies

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Weather and Society Integrated Studies claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Weather and Society Integrated Studies before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Weather and Society Integrated Studies ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Weather and Society Integrated Studies

In research: Weather and Society Integrated Studies appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Weather and Society Integrated Studies in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Weather and Society Integrated Studies is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Meteorology and climate education, Weather warnings and advisories, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Weather and Society Integrated Studies outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Weather and Society Integrated Studies in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Weather and Society Integrated Studies means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Weather and Society Integrated Studies out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Weather and Society Integrated Studies in simple terms?

Why does Weather and Society Integrated Studies matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Weather and Society Integrated Studies?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Weather and Society Integrated Studies.