Too Many Atmospheric Scientists . . . Surprise, Surprise
July 15th, 2008Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
In the current issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society John Knox concludes (PDF):
. . . if the projections are accurate: the number of undergraduate meteorology degree recipients will increasingly exceed the number of meteorology employment opportunities into the next decade. Thus, given recent trends and future projections, the growth of the U.S. undergraduate meteorology population is potentially unsustainable in terms of bachelor’s degree–level employment within meteorology.
With respect to the job market for meteorologists he finds another solid indication of a glut:
Meteorology graduates’ salaries in this national database are much closer to those in the traditionally glutted and underpaid humanities fields than to salaries for graduates with computer science, physics, geology, or mathematics degrees.
Knox indicates that this situation has developed because the atmospheric sciences community has ignored the demand side of the equation when pressing for an ever increasing supply of students, and may foreshadow a similar glut at the graduate level:
the quantitative results of this article can be construed to indicate that we have entered
a period of chronic oversupply of undergraduate meteorologists. This oversupply has arguably come about because the mechanisms that generate interest in our field (e.g., unprecedented media emphasis on weather) are mostly uncoupled to the mechanisms of demand. Media coverage of weather and climate topics can inspire throngs of students to pursue meteorology as a career; it is specifically cited by UNC Charlotte meteorologists as a reason for their program’s spectacular growth (www.charlotte.
com/274/story/103334.html). But widespread media attention does not magically create future employment opportunities for these students within meteorology. If, in turn, this situation translates into a future boom in graduate school enrollments and Ph.D. production, the current parlous state of “grantsmanship” in our science as described by the critiques of Carlson (2006) and Roulston (2006) would seem tame by comparison.
In the same issue, Jeff Rosenfield, Editor-in-Chief of BAMS editorializes (not online, at p. 773) that he was “surprised” by the data. He should not have been. In 2002 I engaged in a series of exchanges on the pages of BAMS on exactly this question in response to a paper by Vali, Anthes, et al. warning of a shortage of PhD atmospheric scientists. They argued that one solution was to boost the undergraduate ranks in the atmospheric sciences:
we as a community should seek ways to increase the number of qualified applicants. Because the number of atmospheric scientists required under any reasonable scenario is small compared to the total number of students in undergraduate education, a modest increase in the effort to recruit students from other disciplines could have a major impact in a relatively short period of time.
In response, I argued that any discussion of a shortfall in supply of atmospheric sciences professionals needed also to be accompanied by some understanding of the market demand for people trained with this expertise, something that Vali , Anthes, et al. neglected to discuss, and Knox identifies as a root factor in the present mismatch of supply and demand. I argued that the atmospheric sciences were risking committing the exact same mistake made by the NSF when it proclaimed a looming shortage of scientists in the 1990s. I concluded:
The science and technology community generally experienced loss of credibility in the 1990s when a number of prominent figures claimed a looming shortage of scientists. Leaders in the atmospheric sciences are in a position to use experience to avoid such errors in future assessments of the labor market. In particular, considerable care must be taken in raising expectations of potential students and policymakers about the future prospects for employment.
In reply, Vali and Anthes dismissed the importance of any consideration of demand, raised the “idealistic” vision of the free pursuit of knowledge, and ended with a jingoistic appeal to the need for more native U.S. scientists. To this I rejoined that there was indeed data available that portended a potential oversupply of atmospheric scientists, and this data was ignored at some risk. No one should be surprised at the current labor market situation for atmospheric scientists.
Now it turns out that the community faces an oversupply of undergraduates, depressed salaries, and a potential loss of credibility. Of course, the entirely predictable next step in this situation will be for the atmospheric sciences community to bemoan the fact that research budgets have not kept pace with the supply of trained atmospheric scientists, and call for an increase in federal R&D to create new opportunities. And in this way, the politics of science funding go round and round.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Am I reading correctly that:
atmospheric scientist = meteorologist?
About halfway through the article the term changes from “meteorologist” to “atmospheric scientist”.
Atmospheric science, I’m sure you are aware, is quite a wide ranging field composed of many people besides meteorologists, and consequently it doesn’t logically follow that too many meteorologists means there are too many atmospheric scientists. Unless you’re implying that the trend has now been noticed for meteorologists is generally applicable across all of atmospheric science.
July 17th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Pete-D:
Indeed Meteorology + Atmos Sciences more generally.
July 18th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Been there, done that in physics in the 1990s. I remember David Goodstein (provost of CalTech) testifying before Congress that physics needed more funding because he was having a hard time paying all his grad students and postdocs. He was chided sharply by a Representative (I forget who), who said that federal research funding was not intended to be a welfare program for Ph.D.s.
Curiously, I and a number of my peers moved from physics into atmospheric science in the mid-90s because there was a glut of Ph.D. physicists and atmospheric science was relatively underpopulated (although for me atmospheric science was just a way station and I have migrated many times since).
What’s missing in the hand-wringing is a thoughtful discussion of whether an education in atmospheric science (including meteorology) can serve as a general preparation for flexible and creative problem-solving that can prepare someone for a career outside the traditional paths.
Physics has been successful at this over the past decade, selling itself in the liberal-arts tradition and producing satisfied graduates who don’t think they’ll die if they don’t become professors or full-time curiosity-driven researchers. Is this a reasonable model for atmospheric science?
July 19th, 2008 at 12:36 am
“What’s missing in the hand-wringing is a thoughtful discussion of whether an education in atmospheric science (including meteorology) can serve as a general preparation for flexible and creative problem-solving that can prepare someone for a career outside the traditional paths.”
What’s depressing to me is that the question is phrased this way instead of a discussion of how an education in atmospheric sciences can serve as a preparation for other careers.
Since the field where more than half the Ph.D. graduates are on the tenure track within 5 years of completion is a rarity, faculty that don’t address the question of how their education programs prepare people for other careers are supporting the notion of the Ph.D. as asexual reproduction of academics. Where’s the genetic mixing?
Addressing Ph.D. production from that perspective, every field produces too many, and no field is in danger of lacking replacements for the current scholars.
July 21st, 2008 at 2:52 pm
JG: “What’s missing in the hand-wringing is a thoughtful discussion of whether an education in atmospheric science (including meteorology) can serve as a general preparation for flexible and creative problem-solving that can prepare someone for a career outside the traditional paths.”
DB: “What’s depressing to me is that the question is phrased this way instead of a discussion of how an education in atmospheric sciences can serve as a preparation for other careers.”
I’m puzzled as to what it is in the way I phrased my question you find depressing. I thought I was exactly asking how education in atmospheric sciences can prepare graduates for other careers.
As to sexual reproduction of Ph.D.s, I interpret that as suggesting a more dramatically multidisciplinary approach to the curriculum. I have been pushing in that direction in my own institution (we’ve instituted a mandatory social science and humanities component to our Ph.D. programs in environmental sciences and environmental engineering) but one doesn’t want to go overboard and reduce a Ph.D. program to facile dilettantry.
I’m replying not to be defensive but because I take these issues seriously and if you see something wrong with my view I’d like to understand the criticism better so I can learn from it.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:25 am
First, my apologies for the tardy response.
I can understand the confusion, and I regret not clarifying. When I read “a career outside the traditional paths,” I think you mean non-academic atmospheric scientists. Your response indicates I was putting at least some words, if not all of them, into your mouth.
What I think any Ph.D. field should commit more effort to is preparing their students for career paths that may not be scientific, or at least not within their own subject matter expertise. So I don’t think just in terms of being a (insert field here) in government, industry, or with some other organization, but in terms of how what you learn – the skills – as a Ph.D., can be used in different careers.
The sexual reproduction comment includes not only an interest in more multidisciplinarity, but also a criticism of the idea that as long as enough Ph.Ds are produced to replace current faculty in the field, then the field has nothing to worry about. That seems particularly short-sighted to me, and consistent with the perspective that graduate students are little more than depressed wage slaves.