Incoming President’s Message from Jim Abraham

Early in my career, while training to be an operational meteorologist 43 years ago, I signed up to become a member of CMOS. It was an exciting time. Since then, CMOS membership has enabled me to remain connected with friends and colleagues, and develop new relationships with many others from the private sector, other government departments, and universities.

I am therefore honoured to have been chosen as CMOS President. The past year as Vice-President was certainly enlightening. I now appreciate the scope and number of activities undertaken by Gordon, in a part-time position as Executive Director. It was very rewarding working with the Executive team from Southern Ontario, as well as my colleagues from the Centres.

I was so happy to get to know our now Past-President, Marek Stastna. We share very similar perspectives on many of our challenges and opportunities; and I congratulate him for his leadership in developing the Strategic and Action Plans that will provide guidance to Gordon, Executive and Council on priorities needing our attention. Marek and I also both enjoy a good craft beer, and looking forward to the chance to actually meet our Past-President in person, and share a pint with him sometime over the coming year.

I would also like to welcome and thank my colleagues from the Halifax Centre who are new to Council this year, and who will be actively providing leadership within the Society while Halifax hosts the new Executive. For 2021-22, Serge Desjardins will be Vice-President, Jinyu Sheng Treasurer, and Emily MacPherson and Abdoulaye Harou, Councillors-at-Large.

My past involvement with CMOS has mostly been through gatherings like Congress, Operational Workshops, and seminars; and several years as the Halifax Centre Chair. However, the area that I see so much potential is support for the youth, our future scientific leaders. Our emerging partnership with the Canadian Water Resources Association’s Project WET will enable connecting our weather, water, ocean and climate science with the learning needs of K-12. I would also like to see us enhance our scholarship program to encourage High School and Undergraduate students to continue studies and consider careers in Earth System Science. I’m thinking we should target some donations and bequests for this purpose.

Since I do enjoy connecting with people, I am considering preparing a regular Newsletter to complement the Bulletin, to keep you all informed of Executive and Council activities, upcoming events, and any news and opportunities relevant to our membership. Thinking of calling it: CMOS Wave?? I welcome any thoughts on this idea. As well, during the Congress, there was some discussion on developing a media strategy. There is a lot of great science to share, and the public should benefit from an improved understanding. Climate drivers of the recent heat extremes in Western Canada would be a good example.

I would like to congratulate David Fissel, Ken Denman and the Victoria Congress team for their extremely hard work in producing an incredibly successful meeting, with an unprecedented number of great presentations and participation.

I welcome the opportunity to connect with as many of you as possible over the next year and really look forward to a return to personal interaction at the 2022 Congress in Saskatoon.