After spending the last three years serving as the assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Michael Morgan returns to campus to teach students about atmospheric and oceanic sciences. We sat down with the professor to ask him about how his time at NOAA is impacting his research, why federal funding is important and his upcoming spring predictions.
What drew you to the study of atmospheric and oceanic sciences?
I became interested in weather back in 1979 when I saw the largest snowstorm I’ve ever seen in my entire life. We got 22.5 inches of snow in Baltimore. That just fascinated me, and I’ve been interested in science pretty much all my life, going all the way back to the Apollo program and watching the lunar landings with my brother, who kept that interest in space as an astronomer. I went a different direction and pursued atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
What is your research specialty?
The work I do centers around understanding the dynamics and predictability of weather systems that exist on scales of several hours out to a week or two. But what do I mean by that? It’s really looking at the weather we have outside — for example today we have a snowstorm — and trying to understand how additional data a few days earlier could have helped us improve our predictions of what the impact would be here in the Madison area, or for any part of the storm in any part of the country. Ultimately, the goal is to improve the forecast of these sorts of weather events. I look at mid-latitude or extra tropical cyclones as well as tropical storms and hurricanes in an effort to better understand their predictability. So, my work sits at the intersection of data and weather models and how we can improve analysis to improve forecasts.
You’ve been working on campus now for 31 years. What brought you to UW–Madison?
What attracted me to UW–Madison was obviously the outstanding reputation. And what’s kept me here has been the collegiality of the department, the breadth of the research we do in science and also the University’s and this department’s promotion of the Wisconsin Idea. This has allowed me in three separate instances to take either a leave of absence or a sabbatical leave to take the skills that I have and use them to benefit the nation and then come back to continue the work that I’m doing here.
These leaves have led you to serve in important government work. Most recently, you were appointed as the assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction for NOAA. What did that job entail?
The key aspect of my role was providing the agency with guidance on the process of converting environmental observations into predictions of environmental threats. That aligns nicely with the research I do here on campus in terms of data and predictions generated by forecast models. But it’s more than that. It’s all the other things that go in between that, from how we take those observations to data assimilation, which is how we get the data into the models, to generating the forecasts themselves. And it’s not enough just to generate a great forecast, we also need to ensure that the forecast can be disseminated to all the interested parties that have to make decisions based on weather and climate.
What’s something that stood out to you from your experience at NOAA?
Early on when I arrived, I was asked to serve and give a talk at a meeting about NOAA and its role in the use of artificial intelligence. Shortly thereafter, I was asked to serve as an executive champion for AI for the agency. That’s when my eyes were open wide about the emergence of AI for environmental monitoring and also environmental prediction. I loved having that opportunity to see everything that NOAA was doing in that space, including Shazam for whales.
What makes AI so exciting for forecasting specifically?
A few years ago, before AI predictions began to appear, there was a notion that we could generate an ensemble of physics-based forecasts at a high resolution so that we can begin to come up with probabilities that a tornado is likely going to occur in the forecast, and then we can issue a warning even before a tornado is cited so that people know to watch out. That takes about 30 minutes. And that’s great, but tornadoes can spin up more rapidly than that. These AI-driven models that they’ve just begun developing are showing considerable skill in emulating the physics-based models and can run in about three minutes. That allows them to issue warnings in a more timely manner that saves lives and protects property.
Long term, what do you think your impact was through this role?
I left a roadmap regarding AI for weather prediction. And I’ll be blunt, I was hammering away at this and the fact that this is a place we should be making investments because it’s going to transform our field. And if we as a country aren’t doing it — particularly our lead premier agency that generates forecasts — we’re going to fall well behind.
Since your appointment ended, NOAA has faced significant federal funding cuts. What do you see the impact of this being?
One of the concerns that I have is that ultimately, it’s dispiriting for the workforce and those hoping to enter federal service at NOAA. There are dedicated folks, particularly undergraduate and graduate students, who aspire to serve the country in a forecast office or in one of the NOAA national centers doing high-quality work that protects lives and property and ensures the effective and efficient conduct of commerce. These folks have spent a lot of time learning the science and frankly, they have skills now that even I didn’t have when I arrived in this position. If this new generation is removed by federal cuts to the workforce, we’re going to lose out on these skillsets and an infusion of new talent. More importantly, it will slow down the progress of innovation at NOAA. More broadly, the impacts of cuts to budgets and programs, as well as to NOAA staff, will be a degradation of the quality and timeliness of forecasts, advisories, watches and warnings. This could, unfortunately, result in a loss of lives.
How has your time working for the government impacted your teaching and research?
I really want to delve into artificial intelligence and machine learning to ensure that our department continues to build up that program. We need expertise in order for us to stay relevant and provide our graduates with the tools they need to be successful in the private sector or the public sector. And as I learn more, I can talk to students more broadly about opportunities that I was seeing in the federal sector.
Lastly, as an expert forecaster, what are you watching for this spring?
I want to watch to make sure we get ample precipitation for agricultural interests across the state of Wisconsin. Much of the state can be characterized as being abnormally dry or in a moderate drought. The latest climate projections from NOAA are suggesting that the southern part of our state may experience an easing up of the drought while the northern third could see those dry conditions persisting. We know that can be really devastating. Last year we had a dry year for parts of the Upper Midwest, and that impacts crops, when people can plant, and when they can harvest. There are signs of the eastern Pacific beginning to transition away from a La Niña state as the waters warm. While quite remote from the Upper Midwest, the warming of those waters can have an impact on our weather late spring into summer.