One of the most remarkable changes faced by RGMA scientists over the past year is the shift to virtual conferences. While being online takes away the in-person aspect and the energy of thousands of attendees in a convention center, eliminating travel costs opens the door to greater engagement by more scientists.

Organizers of the December 2020 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting and the January 2021 American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting found creative and technological solutions to replicate the camaraderie of in-person meetings. And at both virtual conferences, RGMA was well-represented.

At AGU alone, more than six dozen oral presentations and town halls helped bring RGMA-connected research—and EESM-supported work—to the spotlight. AGU highlights included but were not limited to:

• Ruby Leung of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) was invited to give the prestigious Jacob Bjerknes Lecture, presenting “A Quest to Understand and Model Regional Precipitation and Their Future Changes.”
• Xianglei Huang of the University of Michigan was the primary convener of “Atmosphere and Cryosphere Coupling in the Arctic: Observations, Modeling, and Implications for Future Arctic Changes.”
• Forrest Hoffman of Oak Ridge National Laboratory was the primary convener for a highly-engaged session titled “Improving Earth System Predictability: New Mechanisms, Feedbacks, and Approaches for Predicting Global Biogeochemical Cycles in Earth System Models.”
• Angeline Pendergrass of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) was a convener of “Extreme Precipitation in Past, Present, and Future Climates.”
• Paul Ullrich of the University of California, Davis, was the primary convener for a popular session, “Regional Climate: Modeling, Analysis, and Impacts.” It focused on state-of-the-art modeling and analysis of regional climate impacts on subseasonal-to-multidecadal timescales.
• Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School was the primary convener of “High-Latitude Earth Systems: Their Local Responses to and Impacts on Global Climate Change.” RGMA Program Manager Renu Joseph was a convener for the session.
• Paul Durack of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was the primary convener of “The Global Water Cycle: Coupling and Exchanges Between the Ocean, Land, and Atmosphere.”
• Zhe Feng of PNNL was the primary convener of a session that focused on the evolution and impacts of mesoscale and severe convective storms.
• Renu Joseph served as a moderator during a town hall titled, “DOE’s Strategic Development in Coastal Research: Advancing a Coupled Model-Experiment Research Approach in U.S. Coastal Zones.”
• Sessions focusing on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) climate model evaluation had strong participation and leadership from across EESM.

After the holidays, researchers and program managers turned their attention to the AMS Annual Meeting, held virtually from January 10 to 15, 2021. In addition to numerous oral presentations and posters by EESM scientists, RGMA-related presentations included but weren’t limited to:

• Paul Durack co-chaired the “Sixth Symposium on US-International Partnerships - Update on CMIP-6 Data Delivery and Analysis Capabilities.”
• Yun Qian of PNNL served as session chair for “Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events in the Coastal Zone: The Role of Ocean-Atmosphere-Land Interaction.”
• Gudrun Magnusdottir of the University of California, Irvine co-chaired “Causes and Consequences of Polar Amplification.”
• Chaopeng Shen of Pennsylvania State University co-chaired “Applications of Remotely Sensed Observations to Enhance Land Surface Modeling & Data-driven Modeling in Hydrology.”
• Qian co-chaired another session, “Precision Navigation: Increasing the Safety and Efficiency of U.S. Seaports by Providing Mariners with Integrated and Accessible Data and Information; Hydrologic and Coastal Flood Impacts of Severe Weather.”
• Young-Oh Kwon of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution co-chaired “Extratropical Air-Sea Interaction and Climate Impacts.”
• Christine Shields of NCAR co-chaired “Atmospheric Rivers: Processes, Impacts, and Uncertainty Quantification.”

Another important AMS highlight was a town hall, “DOE’s Integrated Human-Earth Systems Modeling: Five New Efforts, Opportunities, and Stakeholder Engagements.” Panelists included Andrew Jones of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Ian Kraucunas of PNNL, RGMA's Renu Joseph, and MultiSector Dynamics Program Manager Bob Vallario. The event was co-chaired by Vallario and DOE’s Director of Earth and Environmental Systems Sciences Division Gerald Geernaert.