The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: A Warning and Advice for Aspiring Scientists Right Now
Dear Diary. The last few days we have covered cutbacks coming to NOAA and any other government programs involving climate and weather. What wasn’t mentioned is the fact that government grants and contracts for scientific endeavors will be on the chopping block during Trump’s second term. This is a big retreat from the 1960s when science grew due to the space race to the moon with educators encouraging young people to go towards scientific careers. Now most new science will depend upon the private sector for funding. I’m asking myself if as a young person in today’s environment, could I have a scientific career? The answer to that question is probably not, or at the very least my path towards a secure job would have been filled with many more potholes.
My own story goes way back to when I was in the 10th grade in 1976. I got the weather/climate bug after winning first place in the DeKalb County Science Fair that year with a dendrochronology presentation. Getting praise for correlating yearly tree ring widths with rainfall amounts spurred me on to procuring a Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology from Florida State, which led to a 31-year career at the Weather Channel from 1983-2014. That road wasn’t easy folks, and it certainly won’t be for today’s aspiring scientists as they navigate through the rigors of mathematics and physics to attain degrees. Add on hiring and grant freezes just about everywhere, and a career involving meteorology a d climatology is just about impossible the rest of the 2020s.
So, what should aspiring young scientists do? Have a great end game after high school graduation. Garner great mentors who can help with job placement and/or getting any grant money for continued education. If you have the gift of gab and a stage presence, get an on air job. High I.Q. people need to go into climate/meteorological modeling but due to grant cuts these jobs might be few and far between. The Weather Service might be disbanded soon, so there will be a glut of forecasters for smaller scale private sector groups to pick from.
For much more advice, here is a new article from someone that I had the privilege to meet, Dr. Marshall Shepherd:
Passion or Pragmatism – Advice For Aspiring Scientists Right Now
By Marshall Shepherd, Senior Contributor.
Apr 12, 2025, 06:40pm EDT
ELBERT COUNTY, CO – MAY 8: Traveling in a tornado scouting vehicle, Hunter Anderson, a meteorology student at St. Cloud State University and current intern with the Center For Severe Weather Research, checks radar and storm models on his smartphone as his group chases a supercell thunderstorm during a tornado research mission, May 8, 2017 in Elbert County near Agate, Colorado. With funding from the National Science Foundation and other government grants, scientists and meteorologists from the Center for Severe Weather Research try to get close to supercell storms and tornadoes trying to better understand tornado structure and strength, how low-level winds affect and damage buildings, and to learn more about tornado formation and prediction. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Getty Images
I spent much of my childhood catching bees and other insects. After being stung by a bee, I learned the hard way about having a bee sting allergy. I pivoted my sixth-grade science project from entomology to meteorology. The rest is history. There are a couple of lessons in that story for students and aspiring scientists as the landscape shifts.
Students at the collegiate and high school levels are paying attention to reports of federal scientists being dismissed, programs being cut and other research funding pressures. They are asking professors, mentors, and alumni contacts important questions about future job prospects, availability of funding for graduate school, or whether to consider different career trajectories.
JAKARTA, INDONESIA – APRIL 15: An apitherapy practitioner administers a bee sting to the hand of a patient at Cibubur Bee Center on April 15, 2007 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Bee acupuncture or apitherapy, is an alternative healing practice where bee stings are used as treatment for various conditions and diseases. Apitherapy, which was first practiced in China, has developed as a popular alternative healing method in Indonesia. (Photo by Dimas Ardian/Getty Images)Getty Images
Let’s revisit my bee story. That sting was a sudden stressor that caused a pivot in my scientific career. For much of my early childhood, I wanted to be an entomologist. However, that sixth-grade science project, “Can a 6th-grader Predict The Weather,” won a science fair and inspired a new passion. The honey bee inspired a Plan B. I went on to receive a doctorate degree in physical meteorology, work as a research meteorologist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, become President of the American Meteorological Society, host a pioneering show on The Weather Channel, and be elected to the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. To this day, I am a certified weather geek who followed a passion even if the immediate pathway was not always clear.
My story is no different than others that forayed into meteorology or atmospheric sciences. Membership surveys have shown that many members of the AMS developed a passion for weather in elementary or middle school. Most students who major in atmospheric sciences walk onto campus knowing that will be their field of study. It is rarely discovered.
This picture taken on January 23, 2023 in Toulouse, southwestern France, shows screens displaying the logos of OpenAI and ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a conversational artificial intelligence software application developed by OpenAI. (Photo by Lionel BONAVENTURE / AFP) (Photo by LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
Plan B And Passion
This leads me to my first piece of advice. Do not ever give up on you passion but have a Plan B. This may be the time to consider micro-credentialing or broadening the tools in the toolbox. Most universities or colleges offer double majors, co-majors, certificates, joint undergraduate – graduate programs and internships that can complement primary areas of study. We strongly advise our atmospheric sciences students to double major in geography to get exposure to GIS and social sciences perspectives. My daughter is pursuing a sociology degree with a sustainable certificate while being simultaneously enrolled in 3+2 program that allows her to work on a Master’s degree in non-profit leadership and management.
Data science, artificial intelligence, applied statistics, GIS, and computational sciences complement many physical or biological sciences career paths facing contraction or job market fluctuations. An aspiring scientist right now should consider co-mingling passion with pragmatism. My colleague Paul Walsh is a leading thought leader in the private sector within the meteorology community. When I lamented about students having to sacrifice passion and interests for pragmatism, he reminded of something Robert Frost once said, “Unite your avocation with your vocation.”
SALTBURN-BY-THE-SEA, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 28: Mammatus clouds form over houses at sunset on October 28, 2017 in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, England. Mammatus means mammary cloud and they are a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud, typically cumulonimbus rainclouds but also altostratus, altocumulus and stratocumulus. They form when sinking air is cooler than the surrounding air and have high liquid or ice content. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)Getty Images
Candidly, I was inspired more by the wonder of hurricanes or mammatus clouds than python code or machine learning as kid. However, I worked with genetic algorithms and numerical prediction models in my graduate work at Florida State University. Many students or professionals have skillsets well-suited for “careers of the moment” that may be more resilient to socio-political volatility. As an example, the Europeans were already ahead of the U.S. in weather modeling skill. This year they rolled out an efficient, accurate operational AI forecast model.
The Academy, Private Sector, and Government Assure Resilience and Competitiveness
In moments like this, students often pivot to graduate school, but some have expressed concerns about funding. Many institutions have rescinded or reduced new graduate admission offers. Our global competitiveness and future prospects will depend on a STEM-ready workforce and a new generation of experts. Universities will find a way to educate scholars, but it may require novel funding models involving the private sector or foundations.
The private sector may also offer opportunities for aspiring scientists as they acquire slack from losses in the federal sector. However, they may not have the capacity to absorb the sudden glut of displaced federal workers and new college graduates hitting the market. Additionally, the private sector is not currently scaled for the full scientific, technical and multidisciplinary capacity required to advance new technologies in agriculture, get us to Mars, provide national security, or fend off the next lurking pandemic.
Matteo Dell’Acqua, deputy director of the information system at Meteo-France, the French national meteorological service, poses near the organisation’s newly acquired supercomputer, on March 4, 2014 in Meteopole, the organisation’s headquarters in Toulouse. AFP PHOTO ERIC CABANIS (Photo credit should read ERIC CABANIS/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images
To ensure success, advancement and competitiveness, government, industry, and academia will need to complement each other and collaborate in unison. During my tenure at NASA, I watched industry, civil servant, and academic scholars work seamlessly to provide vital technologies and scientific knowledge related wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, and drouth. Each sector brings unique capacity, expertise, and efficiency to the table. Their viability also depends on specialized scientists, programmers, technologists, and engineers.
Some of the world’s greatest medical, engineering, and scientific discoveries did not come from plans, spreadsheets or pragmatism. They came from scholars, scientists, and inventors with a passion for what they do. I hope we never get to a point where we are extinguishing the passion of our brightest young mines or forcing them to go elsewhere.
We need them here now and in the years to come.
GREENBELT, MD – NOVEMBER 02: Engineers and technicians assemble the James Webb Space Telescope November 2, 2016 at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The telescope, designed to be a large space-based observatory optimized for infrared wavelengths, will be the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope. It is scheduled to be launched in October 2018. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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Here are more “ET’s” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Monday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)