About 70 Mind the Gappers met at the new home for Atmospheric Science on the campus of the University at Albany, SUNY at the start of the summer. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive with many attendees expressing gratitude for the focus on highly tangible outcomes. The organizers are drafting a full summary of the workshop which will publish in the months ahead. The initiative is supported by the AMS and the workshop was funded by NSF Award #2146763.
Partnership with UCAR and MetEd
One significant early outcome from the workshop is a partnership between Mind the Gap, UCAR, and MetEd under a new NSF Award #2237520 that was announced in early August to develop online learning -aka “COMET modules”- that focus on private sector applications for weather, water and climate science.
Scenario-based COMET Training for Careers in the Weather, Water and Climate Industry
Project Summary:
Overview: The goal of the project is to develop online and classroom training materials that expose university students to careers in the private sector of the weather, water, and climate enterprise and allow them to apply relevant skills within real-world industry scenarios. These materials will specifically address longstanding and growing gaps between skills that can be acquired in traditional, theory-based atmospheric science classrooms and those required to succeed in today’s complex private sector careers. A multidisciplinary team of researchers, instructional designers, and web and graphics specialists will partner with industry subject matter experts to identify the most critical skill gaps and infuse learning materials with real-world expertise and datasets. The team, in partnership with university pilot instructors, will iteratively develop and refine several introductory private sector and skills overview materials as well as upper-level classroom-based exercises in which students will engage in role-playing in a variety of industry scenarios during a weather event. The materials will be implemented on the well-known MetEd website, freely available to all universities and the public at large, and connected to over 1,000 hours of complementary geoscience education resources.
Project Description
The overall goal is to develop online and classroom training materials that expose university students to careers in the private sector of the weather, water, and climate enterprise and allow them to apply relevant skills within real-world industry scenarios.
Justification
The Mind the Gap movement to embed skills for private sector work into university meteorology curricula is beginning to transform education in the atmospheric sciences. The COMET training materials developed from this EAGER proposal are expected to be transformative to many meteorology programs throughout the country. The urgency to rapidly build on the results of the recent workshop precludes typical funding applications. As a radically different approach to meteorology education, these materials would serve as a springboard for instructors who wish to make these changes in traditional meteorology education, but may not themselves have the appropriate industry or operational experience. This proposal includes funds for private sector consultants to provide the required expertise and advise on the skills. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Research Applications Laboratory (RAL) will also bring their expertise in working with private clients. The proposed materials will leverage the work of the break-out groups at the second Mind the Gap workshop as described below. The payoff will be students aware of careers in the private sector, knowledgeable about the skills required to succeed in it, and experienced in applying those skills within real-world industry scenarios. This is a novel approach to meteorology education that will greatly benefit the careers of many students.
Background
Weather, water, and climate impact nearly every sector of the economy and nearly every citizen of the United States. To meet the changing needs and concerns of all sectors in the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise, synergistic linkages between government entities, private sector organizations, and universities have developed and grown over the last several decades and have been fostered through activities of the American Meteorological Society (AMS; Haupt 2022). Jobs in the atmospheric sciences (including meteorology) are expected to grow at a “faster rate than the average” for all occupations between 2019–2029, and the “best job prospects are expected to be in private industry” (e.g., Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). The realization that students are not receiving proper guidance and preparation for private sector careers became obvious at the 98th AMS Annual Meeting in January 2018. During this meeting, the Ninth Conference on Weather, Climate, Water, and the New Energy Economy and the Eighth Conference on the Transition of Research to Operations co-hosted a joint session entitled "Communicating Information and Risk in the Energy Sector". The session featured a diverse set of panelists from both academic and private sectors, and a student-targeted discussion concerning private sector career opportunities. During and after this session, meteorology students of varying academic levels shared anecdotes of feeling unaware and unprepared to act on the breadth of available private sector career opportunities. These sentiments resonated with the organizers of the panel discussion and motivated a workshop proposal. Shortly thereafter, a small group consisting of academic and private sector representatives was formed to address this systemic lack of awareness concerning the pathways to private sector employment.
Thus was born the Mind the Gap movement, which has been fostered within the AMS and supported by NSF. A first 2.5-day, NSF-supported workshop was convened at NCAR in Boulder, CO, July 10-12, 2019 (https://ral.ucar.edu/events/2019/mind-the-gap). That workshop consisted of about 70 scientists representing the private sector, academic sector, and students. The participants worked together in groups by sector, in mixed breakout groups, and as a whole, to: (1) Identify curriculum gaps and challenges linked to a lack of preparation for students pursuing careers in the private sector; (2) Discuss these gaps and challenges, and propose creative solutions for academic and private sectors; (3) Create sets of recommendations for programs to address these gaps and challenges; (4) Create sets of recommendations for private sector partners to take a more active role in addressing skill gaps and challenges; (5) Lay the groundwork for future opportunities for collaboration between private sector and academia that includes students. The workshop was well received and successful in kickstarting several community-led initiatives across the weather, water and climate enterprise. Many of these initiatives were organized within the community of AMS, including the formation of a Mind the Gap Ad Hoc Committee as part of the AMS Commission on the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise.
A second NSF-supported Mind the Gap Workshop was convened recently in Albany, NY June 15-17, 2022 (http://www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff/andrea/MindTheGap/index.html). That workshop and the four pre-workshop virtual meetings focused on the following:
Categorizing curriculum gaps and the associated weak skills that lead to the lack of preparation for students pursuing careers in the private sector;
Identifying appropriate courses and creative pedogeological solutions to close the gaps;
Creating datasets of industry-relevant cases for use in the classroom, applicable across various private sectors;
Creating pedagogical materials that include new skill sets and methodologies valuable in private sector employment for implementations in identified courses
Developing a framework for future collaborative projects and/or data sharing between the private sector and academic communities;
Engaging the academic community on the development and benefits of the new pedological materials in the classroom.
Through academic and private sector panels and a series of small group discussions, these goals were met. Various core skills were identified that are key to private sector success, including not only technical skills such as statistics, data management, computer programming and machine learning, and risk assessment, but also what became known as “power skills” such as communicating to non-specialists, time and project management, problem-solving, and critical thinking. Small groups also looked at how these skills could be integrated into existing courses, such as introductory meteorology, synoptic and dynamic meteorology, and weather forecasting. Follow-on group exercises identified some actions that could be taken in upcoming semester classes as well as brainstormed longer term co-production of material that could persist and be used widely in meteorology education. One specific means of co-production suggested was through COMET materials, which leads us to the purpose of the current proposal. The vision derived from the workshop is to engage private sector meteorologists to work directly with COMET and RAL personnel to integrate their perspective into materials for students in university atmospheric science courses. This will provide a sustainable framework for collaborative projects between the private sector and academia.
Objectives
The overall objective of the proposed work is to develop online and classroom training materials that expose university students to careers in the private sector of the weather, water, and climate enterprise, and allow them to apply relevant skills within real-world industry scenarios. The enabling objectives that will allow completion of this terminal objective involve the following: (1) identify and recruit atmospheric science industry subject matter experts to support content development with real-world expertise and datasets, (2) develop and implement scenario-based online training materials for atmospheric science industry-centric applications, (3) pilot training materials with representative samples of atmospheric science faculty and student participants, and (4) refine and evaluate outcomes of training materials developed.
The fundamental questions that guide these objectives are: (1) What are the critical skill needs of the atmospheric science workforce in the context of industry-centric, societally relevant applications?, (2) How can scenario-based pedagogical approaches be leveraged to provide active learning opportunities for atmospheric science faculty and students, and (3) Which industries and topics are of greatest importance for the next generation atmospheric science workforce?
Expected Significance
The anticipated significance of the proposed work represents a convergence across the atmospheric science sectors of academia, government and private sector. By emphasizing training content specific to industry and societal needs, the proposed COMET materials will revolutionize the instruction of the atmospheric science workforce and promote a cohort of atmospheric science graduates prepared to meet the evolving needs of society with the skills to address the types of work in the private sector. The specific outcomes of the work will: (1) Address the most critical skill gaps and needs of the atmospheric science workforce, and (2) Promote greater use and adoption of scenario-based pedagogical approaches in providing online, active learning opportunities. The reach of these outcomes may approach 400 undergraduate students per year, assuming eventual widespread adoption into one of several core weather forecasting-related courses across universities with meteorology/atmospheric science courses, and assuming constant US major enrollment rates.
Statement of Work
Task 1 - Recruit SMEs and Pilot Instructors
A group of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from across the private sector will be recruited to provide factual input, case data and expert perspectives for the materials produced. Several volunteer atmospheric science instructors will be recruited to pilot the exercises in their classrooms and provide feedback at various phases of development. These SMEs and instructors will be recruited from the Mind the Gap participants, and the search will be broadened as needed to acquire very specific industry expertise and/or accommodate course offerings.
Stephen Bennett, current chair of the AMS Financial Weather and Climate Risk Management Committee and Co-investigator from the Mind the Gap series, will serve as the lead SME. Mr. Bennett leverages 25 years of experience at organizations including WeatherData Inc. (now Accuweather); Weather Services Corp. (now DTN); The Weather Channel; Enron; Citadel; Verisk; EarthRisk Technologies/Riskpulse (now Everstream Analytics); and The Demex Group. He will use his experience and professional network to assemble the team of SMEs to identify and describe weather and climate impacts to industries and operational factors such as supply chains, agriculture, energy, commodity futures, insurance, reinsurance, weather derivatives, business continuity, transportation, and retail demand-planning to inform development of educational content.
SMEs will engage in the following activities, including but not limited to:
Sharing general knowledge about their industry and role to inform all content, including appearing in short interviews
Assisting in the creation of real-world, role-based learning scenarios
Providing industry-specific data, maps and charts
Sharing expert analyses for specific weather and climate events
Reviewing materials for accuracy and ensuring that skill gaps are effectively addressed
SMEs will receive honoraria for contributions of their expertise, and industry-specific data will be provided in-kind through their employers as needed.
Co-PI Walker will leverage his affiliation as a university partnership co-lead in NCAR’s Education, Engagement and Early-Career Development Center, with emphasis on minority-serving institution (MSI) engagement, and his background in weather impacts on the transportation industry to assemble and liaise with a team of university instructors that will pilot prototype materials in their classrooms. The instructors will engage in the following activities, including but not limited to:
Meeting periodically with SMEs, RAL, and COMET staff to inform the learning design of proposed materials, and to prepare for deploying prototypes;
Testing prototype learning materials with students in their classrooms; and
Completing feedback surveys and participating in focus groups to inform and improve subsequent iterations of the prototypes.
Task 2 - Iterative Development of Proposed Learning Materials
The proposed learning materials will consist of an introductory-level private sector and skills overview lesson and an upper-level classroom-based exercise in which students will engage in role-playing in a variety of industry scenarios. Both materials will be hosted on COMET’s MetEd website (www.meted.ucar.edu), which is widely known and used throughout the weather, water and climate enterprise, especially by universities and colleges, who account for 40% of its users. MetEd also contains over 1,000 hours of related self-directed learning materials, including over 50,000 individual media assets. Relevant resources from the MetEd catalog can be easily linked and accessed from the proposed learning materials, and the materials produced will be added to successful course content mappings that were recently completed under NSF Award No. 2037034 in 2021.
Proposed Material A - Careers in the Weather, Water and Climate Enterprise: Exploring the Private Sector
This material will introduce careers in several private sector industries that rely heavily on weather, water and climate information. It will address the following topics at an introductory level aimed toward students entering the atmospheric sciences/meteorology major:
What function(s) each industry primarily performs and the importance of their services;
How weather, water and climate information are generally used in these functions;
What the most common positions in these functions are responsible for performing; and
What additional technical and power skills enable staff to succeed at these functions.
To effectively increase awareness and understanding of these topics, between four and eight short-video vignettes will be created. Each vignette will overview an industry such as insurance, transportation, energy or agriculture, and will feature an interview with a corresponding SME. SMEs will reveal not only a typical “day in the life” of their industry position, but also share valuable information on how they found this career option and on what technical and power skills they’ve had to learn in order to succeed in it. All vignettes will be fully captioned and transcripted for accessibility, and cumulative pre- and post-tests will be available for completion.
A complementary online resource that overviews associated technical and power skill areas will be created and hosted on the MetEd website. Each skill area will contain takeaway information that defines the skill, examples of how it is commonly applied in the weather, water and climate enterprise, and linkages to informal and formal resources for continuing education.
Proposed Material B - Careers in the Weather, Water and Climate Enterprise: Case-based Industry Scenarios
This learning resource will enable upper-level undergraduate students to apply associated technical and power skills within a real-world industry scenario. A weather event that broadly impacted many industries, such as the 2021 February winter storm that affected Texas, will be selected by the team to serve as a case study in which students can assume the role of one of several industry professionals. Multimedia scenarios will describe the role the student is playing and what tasks they must complete for effective service delivery in their industry. Students will apply data management skills to investigate and manipulate standard weather case data alongside relevant data from their assigned industry role to complete the scenario tasks. Along the way, they will apply power skills as they grapple with decision making, time constraints, and communicating with scenario stakeholders.
These scenarios, and the tasks within them, are likely to be quite novel to undergraduate students. Educational psychology research indicates that presenting unfamiliar challenges such as these before teaching solutions results in better long-term retention of information, even when mistakes are made in the process (Brown et al., 2014). Accordingly, and importantly, post-event analyses with interview snippets will include industry experts’ perspectives from the case as they worked it, including challenges and mistakes. Overall, these realistic scenarios should boost motivation in these adult learners because they can see the relevance, challenges, contexts, and actions that they will encounter on the job, and they will thus be more prepared to directly transfer the knowledge to operational environments (Clark and Mayer, 2013).
Materials for the scenarios classroom exercise may include, but are not limited to the following:
A package of typical weather case data for meteorological analysis of the event,
Four to eight multimedia industry scenarios that contain service delivery task prompts,
A package of complementary industry-specific data for each scenario,
A set of industry SME service-delivery experiences and explanations for each scenario,
An instructor’s guide with instructions and course integration and adaptation tips.
Iterative Material Development Approach and Work Plan Timeline
COMET Co-I Smith and Senior Personnel Hirsch will employ their expertise in scientific writing and case/scenario design to join RAL staff in leading the development of materials A and B. The iterative Successive Approximation Model (SAM; Allen and Sites, 2012) will be used throughout. In this agile approach, RAL-COMET leads, web and graphic developers, and SMEs will perform the following steps: 1) quickly refine the existing learning objectives from the Mind the Gap series and identify the most appropriate industry- and skill-based scenarios for use; 2) create rapid prototypes of an initial design for a vignette, skill resource, and industry scenario; 3) solicit immediate feedback internally and with relevant university stakeholders; 4) revise the design accordingly; 5) iteratively develop, review and revise the content, media and data that will constitute the material using COMET’s suite of functional prototyping tools - this step will accommodate a number of classroom user tests with volunteer pilot instructors and potential focus group feedback sessions as outlined in the timeline below; and 6) implement the materials on the MetEd website and analyze usage statistics.
Task 3 - Material Evaluation and Expansion Planning
Learning materials will undergo a number of user tests and opportunities for community feedback as outlined in task 2 above to ensure project objectives are met and that materials are useful and relevant to the community. Both the introductory vignettes and upper-level scenario exercises’ usage statistics will be compiled and analyzed via the MetEd learning management system and Google Analytics to gain insights into overall user numbers and demographics. The introductory vignettes and skill resources will be more formally evaluated through analyzing objective pre- and post-test performance statistics to measure learning, and through deployment of a custom user survey that contains ratings on perceived learning, quality and usefulness. The survey will contain several free-response options for users to share their thoughts on efficacy, challenges and suggested improvements. The upper-level scenarios will be evaluated using a similar survey instrument, as well as with a dedicated survey for instructors who piloted the exercise in their classrooms.
Some of the questions in the user and instructor surveys will ask about continued topical and skill needs, so as to inform the development of future learning material. The proposed materials will be designed and structured for the web in such a way that additional vignettes from other industries can easily be added; the scenarios exercise will be designed to similarly accommodate additional industry scenarios. The landing pages for both materials will also be designed to accommodate entirely new sectors and case study events, as needed. The AMS Ad Hoc Committee for Mind the Gap will coordinate with other AMS Committees, Boards and Commissions to provide additional input for future lessons and materials.
Intellectual Merit
The intellectual merits of the proposed work represent a convergence of all sectors of atmospheric science to co-develop training materials that will enable future atmospheric science workforce skills to align with the broader needs of society. Moreover, this work will achieve the tangible implementation outcomes of previous NSF-funded Mind the Gap workshops and AMS Financial Weather and Climate Risk Management Committee skill and course recommendations (AMS, 2019). This project addresses a fundamental and growing gap in applied atmospheric science workforce training, and actively promotes direct societal engagement. By emphasizing industry-specific content and real-world societal scenarios, the outcomes of the proposed work will lay a foundation to revolutionize the instruction of the atmospheric science workforce at the beginning of undergraduate courses of study. The work will promote atmospheric science graduates prepared to meet the evolving needs of society in the context of addressing extreme weather and climate change hazards.
Broader Impacts
The proposed work represents a transformational shift toward applied skills and workforce development within atmospheric science undergraduate education. It will establish a foundational approach that can be adapted to feature a variety of additional skills, industries and enterprise sectors. It will also be easily adoptable by other academic disciplines aiming to create more applied, societally-relevant instructional material for integration into their curricula. While the current work focuses on undergraduate content, expansion to graduate course materials and integration of more focused skill applications within postdoctoral programs are possible future efforts. Internal conversations are already occurring within NCAR and the Mind the Gap community to leverage this type of work to create suitable content for NCAR’s Advanced Study Program and other postdoc and internship programs to provide their cohorts with industry-relevant skills.
Finally, the composition of the project team includes individuals who identify as early career scientists and with identities that align with historically marginalized and underrepresented communities. It is through these identities that the content outcomes must also consider equity and accessibility challenges to diverse faculty and student audiences. This project will directly engage MSI faculty and students as part of the iterative content development to ensure that materials will reflect skills and scenarios that are relevant to all.
Results from Prior NSF Support (All)
Senior Personnel Dr. Sue Ellen Haupt was PI of the NSF grant for the first Mind the Gap Workshop (Award #000057-00428, $89,867, awarded to UCAR, 2019) entitled Workshop to Promote Educating the Next Generation of Atmospheric Scientists for Industry Needs, and supported the second proposal (Award #2146763 to University at Albany, $99,999, Andrea Lang, PI), Educating the Next Generation of Atmospheric Scientists for Careers in Industry. Collaborator Stephen Bennett was also Senior Personnel on both of the grants. Intellectual Merit: The Mind the Gap workshops identified technical and power skill gaps between what can be acquired in standard undergraduate curricula and what is needed for private sector careers, and created sets of recommendations for how universities could begin to integrate training on these skills, including the materials outlined in this proposal. Broader Impacts: The workshops fostered a growing partnership between university faculty and students and private sector professionals, including the creation of the AMS Mind the Gap Ad Hoc Committee. By promoting industry-specific content, power skills and real-world scenarios, the workshop outcomes will help lay a foundation to revolutionize the instruction of the atmospheric science workforce.
Co-PI Dr. Curtis Walker’s previous NSF support includes a Graduate Research Fellowship at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Award No. DGE-1041000; $136,000; 7/1/2013–6/30/2018), the NCAR Advanced Study Postdoctoral Fellowship program, and NSF base funding as part of his current NCAR employment (both NCAR related funding are part of Contract No. AGS1755088; $381,135 and $15,000; 8/4/2021-9/30/2023; and Cooperative Agreement No. 1852977; 10/1/2018–9/30/2023). Intellectual Merit: Co-PI Walker engaged with transportation stakeholders and developed winter severity index metrics for winter maintenance activities. Moreover, Co-PI Walker has explored broader impacts and implications of extreme weather and climate change on the safety, reliability, and accessibility of the road surface transportation infrastructure network. This work culminated in eight peer-review publications (Winters and Walker 2022; Walker et al. 2020; Dao et al. 2019; Gholizadeh et al. 2019; Siems-Anderson et al. 2019; Walker et al. 2019a,b; Walker and Anderson 2016) that have advanced the state of practice in winter severity index development across the United States. Broader Impacts: As part of these activities, Co-PI Walker mentored several high school, undergraduate and graduate students in research projects at the intersection of weather, climate, and transportation including students from underrepresented backgrounds as part of the UCAR SOARS Program.
PI Dr. Elizabeth Page’s previous support includes RAPID: Supporting Universities with Online Educational Materials through the MetEd Website (NSF Award No. 2037034, $79,821, 07/01/2020 - 06/30/2021). This project produced an online guide that maps the hundreds of learning materials available on the MetEd website to standard university courses in meteorology and bundled related graphics and animations for convenient download and classroom use. Intellectual Merit: This work addressed a longstanding university community need to quickly and easily find engaging resources to teach students about complex geoscience topics and their applications. Broader Impacts: This online resource is directly applicable to many communities beyond universities, including operational agencies using the World Meteorological Organization’s Basic Instruction Package, and can ease the burden that early-career and/or small department faculty face in sourcing course examples, applications and case data. Publications: Hirsch, Smith and Page, 2021.
Co-PI Andrea Smith’s previous support includes RAPID: Supporting Universities with Online Educational Materials through the MetEd Website (NSF Award No. 2037034, $79,821, 07/01/2020 - 06/30/2021). This project produced an online guide that maps the hundreds of learning materials available on the MetEd website to standard university courses in meteorology and bundled related graphics and animations for convenient download and classroom use. Intellectual Merit: This work addressed a longstanding university community need to quickly and easily find engaging resources to teach students about complex geoscience topics and their applications. Broader Impacts: This online resource is directly applicable to many communities beyond universities, including operational agencies using the World Meteorological Organization’s Basic Instruction Package, and can ease the burden that early-career and/or small department faculty face in sourcing course examples, applications and case data. Publications: Hirsch, Smith and Page, 2021.
References Cited
Allen, M., and R. Sites, 2012: Leaving ADDIE for SAM: An Agile Model for Developing the Best Learning Experiences. Association for Talent Development, 216 pp.
American Meteorological Society (AMS) Financial Weather and Climate Risk Management Committee and Board of Private Sector Meteorologists, 2019: Preparing Students for Employment in the Private Sector Accessed 20 July 2022. https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/education-careers/careers/career-guides-tools/preparing-students-for-employment-in-the-private-sector/
Brown, P.C., H. L. Roediger III, and M.A. McDaniel, 2014: Make It Stick, The Science of Successful Learning. Harvard University Press, 336 pp.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Atmospheric Scientists, Including Meteorologists. Accessed 6 July 2022. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/life-physical-and-social-science/atmospheric-scientists-including-meteorologists.htm
Clark, R. C., and R.E. Mayer, 2013: Scenario-based e-Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Online Workforce Learning. Wiley, 272 pp.
Dao, B., S. Hasanzadeh, C. L. Walker, D. Steinkruger, B. Esmaeili, and M. R. Anderson, 2019: Current practices of winter maintenance operations and perceptions of winter weather conditions. Cold Regions Engineering, 33, doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)CR.1943-5495.0000191.
Gholizadeh, P., C. L. Walker, M. R. Anderson, and B. Esmaeili, 2019: Application of Unsupervised Machine Learning to Increase Safety and Mobility on Roadways after Snowstorms. 2019 International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering, doi: 10.1061/9780784482445.045.
Haupt, S.E., 2022: Volunteers Smooth the Collaboration across the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise, 45 Beacon Street Column, 103, Bull. American Meteol. Soc.
Hirsch, A., Smith, A.M., and E. Page, 2021: University Course Support Resource on the MetEd Website. Accessed 20 July 2022. https://www.meted.ucar.edu/education_training/ucourses
Siems-Anderson, A. R., C. L. Walker, G. Wiener, W. P. Mahoney III, and S. E. Haupt, 2019: An Adaptive Big Data Weather System for Surface Transportation. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 3, doi: 10.1016/j.trip.2019.100071.
Walker, C. L., B. Boyce, C. Albrecht, and A. Siems-Anderson, 2020: Will Weather Dampen Self-Driving Vehicles? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 101, E1914–E1923, doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0035.1.
Walker, C. L., D. Steinkruger, P. Gholizadeh, S. Hasanzadeh, M. R. Anderson, and B. Esmaeili, 2019a: Developing a Department of Transportation Winter Severity Index. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 58, 1779–1798, doi: 10.1175/JAMC-D-18-0240.1.
Walker, C. L., and M. R. Anderson, 2016: Cloud impacts on pavement temperature and shortwave radiation. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 55, 2329–2347, doi: 10.1175/JAMC-D-16-0094.1.
Walker, C. L., S. Hasanzadeh, B. Esmaeili, M. R. Anderson, and B. Dao, 2019b: Developing A Winter Severity Index: A Critical Review. Cold Regions Science and Technology, 160, 139–149, doi: 10.1016/j.coldregions.2019.02.005.
Winters, A. C., and C. L. Walker, 2022: A Jet-Centered Framework for Investigating High Plains Winter Storm Severity. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 61, 709–728, doi: 10.1175/JAMC-D-21-0211.1.