Dr. Roland Stull, professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia's Vancouver campus and author of several widely-respected meteorology textbooks, has made the contents of his book Meteorology for Scientists and Engineers (3rd Edition) available to the public at no charge. Alongside this 2011 edition he is making available a slightly revised version, completed in 2015, retitled Practical Meteorology.

Both books have been released to use and share for free under a Creative Commons License. According to the books' web site, they cover the same topics in the same order, and share the same index.

Data management mandates from federal funding agencies, professional societies, and publishers are becoming more common at all scales of research effort. To help researchers navigate the new requirements and implement effective, low-overhead data management workflows, Unidata is hosting an AMS Short Course on Data Management Planning and Implementation: Training on available open-source tools and services from the community and Unidata. The short course will be held the afternoon of Sunday, 10 January 2016, preceding the 96th AMS Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The short course will provide information on the current mandates, present a researcher-focused approach to data management, and introduce freely available services and tools that can be combined to manage and share research data. The course is intended for practicing researchers who are interested in both meeting the current requirements and implementing “best practice” data management processes in their research effort. The course builds on and extends information available in Unidata's Data Management Resource Center.

Scott Jacobs

Scott Jacobs of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) has been awarded the 2015 Russell L. DeSouza Award by the Unidata Users committee. The DeSouza Award honors “individuals whose energy, expertise, and active involvement enable the Unidata Program to better serve the geosciences.”

Jacobs is the IDP Onboarding Team Lead in the Production Management Branch (PMB) of NCEP Central Operations (NCO). PMB “serves as the technical transition between the research and development of all aspects of the NCEP's computing algorithms and their operational implementation. Production Management is responsible for final checkout of new applications software prior to operational implementation and its maintenance after implementation,” according to their web page. While Jacobs' duties at NCO currently encompass the release of the AWIPS II package, and specifically the National Centers Perspective, he has for many years been an important developer of the GEneral Meteorology PAcKage (GEMPAK) )and the associated National Centers NAWIPS software.

In case you missed it — here's a recap of news from the Unidata Program Center for the month of September, 2015.