WeatherZine #1

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WeatherZine

· 11 months ago

WeatherZine #1
Inaugural/Holiday Issue!
Volume 1, December 15, 1996

"What's happening on the Societal Aspects of Weather WWW Site."

WeatherZine is a bi-monthly on-line and e-mail distribution newsletter for the Societal Aspects of Weather Site. It contains a summary of recent changes to the site (along with links to relevant sections), and news, events, and announcements of interest to the community.

WeatherZine, and its parent WWW site, accept and encourage the submission of activities, events, or links of interest to the community. You can use the on-line forms in the Feedback section or can send an email to thunder@ucar.edu with the item you would like to see posted on the site or included in the next issue of the Zine.

Interesting Statistic of the Month:

In recent years in the United States, hurricanes and floods have together resulted in more than $10 billion in average annual losses. On the web site we have added tables that contain annual losses and casualties for floods and hurricanes for the 20^th century.

As a community resource, we'd like to eventually have a comprehensive listing of the economic and other human impacts of weather. If you have relevant data, please let us know and we will incorporate it into the site (properly referenced of course!).

thunder@ucar.edu

[1] Project News

About the WWW Site

The Societal Aspects of Weather WWW site is an experimental project sponsored by the U.S. Weather Research Program (USWRP). The U.S. Weather Research Program is an interagency effort of the federal government with a goal of improving forecasts of weather phenomena in order to contribute to a reduction in society's vulnerability to weather. The Director of the Program is Dr. William Hooke of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Chief Scientist is Dr. Rit Carbone of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

The purpose of the WWW site on the Societal Aspects of Weather is to provide a community resource to a range of scholars and practitioners who are interested in the relation of society and weather. Ultimately, we'd like to see the site contribute to the development of a network of scholars from a range of disciplines and decision makers from a variety of sectors. For the site to be successful, we will need your participation, in order to both shape the evolution of the site as well as to contribute materials that you would like to disseminate and others might find useful.

Currently, some of our objectives with the site are the following:

to provide a central repository of current resources on the economic and other human impacts of weather;
to provide a wide range of annotated links (continuously updated) to sites on the WWW that contain useful information and contacts related to the societal aspects of weather;
to provide a "virtual journal" that would present, on a periodic basis, a listing of published journal articles relevant to the societal aspects of weather. Because scholars who are interested in society's relation with weather come from many disciplines, their publications appear in hundreds of different journals (if not more!). With your help, we hope to simplify the task of becoming aware of first rate scholarship that might not otherwise come to your attention;
to provide users of weather information a resource to connect with the producers of weather information, and vice versa. We intend to accomplish this through WWW links, contact information, and providing access to information on how weather information is produced and utilized.

The site is overseen by the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group (ESIG) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Meet the Site WebMaster

Quindi Franco has been responsible for the design and development of the site to date. He became involved in the project during the summer of 1996 while a protege in the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Science and Research (SOARS) program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). During that summer, he developed a prototype of the site and a vision document of where it may go. He is currently pursuing a Masters Degree at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and will be working on the site remotely during the school year. He is eager to develop and promote the site into what he believes can become an "incredibly useful tool for the research community." Quindi would really love to hear from you, so please share your suggestions or comments with him at quindi@ucar.edu.

[2] New Additions:

Floods Section

A Floods section has been added to the Phenomena category. It contains links to national organizations and groups, reports, as well as pointers to data and bibliographies specifically on floods.

Lightning

Lightning is the leading cause of weather related personal injuries. This section contains links to lightning safety tips, primers on lightning and thunderstorms, and to organizations concerned with reducing the impacts of lightning.

Agriculture Section

This new section contains links and pointers to information of interest to agricultural users.

General Public

With links to primers on various weather phenomena, safety guidelines, and "interesting weather-society sites in general," this section aims to provide entertaining and informative resources useful to a wide audience.

Calendar of Events

An interactive calendar of events has been created as an easy means for announcing and promoting events and opportunities to the community. Users with forms capable browsers can use an on-line form to submit events for the calendar.

General Improvements

FEEDBACK An improved system of on-line forms has been developed to make it easier for you to submit resources and make comments on the site. The "FEEDBACK" link in the toolbar at the bottom of each page in the site will take you directly to a set of forms where you simply need to fill in relevant information.

[3] Subscribe Now!

The WeatherZine is produced as a Web site and an email message. Subscribing to the WeatherZine will add you to our distribution list and you will receive email messages whenever the WeatherZine is released.

To subscribe to the WeatherZine, use the on-line form at: www.esig.ucar.edu/socasp/forms/join.html, send an email to thunder@ucar.edu and include the following information:

Name
Organization
Email Address
Interests & Needs

or send an email to majordomo@ucar.edu and in the body of the message include:

subscribe weatherzine <your email address>

* do not include the <>'s. Majordomo will ignore the subject line.

For additional information, please contact thunder@ucar.edu

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Weather Impacts Group
Societal Aspects of Weather
Environmental and Societal Impacts Group
National Center for Atmospheric Research
US Weather Research Program

Societal Aspects of Weather Web Site: www.esig.ucar.edu/socasp/
WeatherZine: www.esig.ucar.edu/socasp/zine/