American Meteorological Society (AMS) Format for Projects

AMS format is the recognized method for presenting information in the field of meteorology and atmospheric sciences. It is designed in a way to outline information uniformly for any journal article in the field. For this reason, your paper must be in AMS format. Below is the general outline for presenting your information in AMS format.

Abstract:

A very brief overview of your major results and/or findings from your research. This should not be more than 5 sentences. (Write this last!)

Introduction:

Explain why you chose the topic you did, why it is significant, and propose the question that you are trying to answer by writing this paper. If any previous research has been done on this topic, this is probably a good place to state who in the past has done such research.

Data and Methodology:

List all sources of data in this section. For example, lets say you used the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) to obtain 500 hPa height anomaly fields. You would then need to say that 500 hPa height anomaly fields were obtained from the ESRL, using the NCEP/NCAP Reanalysis Dataset. Many webpages have information on how you they would like you to reference their data. At ESRL, the website with this information is:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/composites/reference.html

Some websites want you to state certain phrases. For example, at ESRL they want you to say "Image provided by the NOAA/ESRL Physical Sciences Division, Boulder Colorado from their Web site at http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/". You should put this phrase either in the image or state this in the data and methodology section. In addition to listing data sources, this section is a chance to let the reader know the methods you used to analyze data. What time periods did you look at? Where did you analyze data? Etc.

Results / Discussion:

Here, you should tell the reader what you have found in the data you analyzed and discuss the implications of what you have found. Go through your figures and tell what they mean and why you think they are important. This will most likely be the longest part of your paper. The last part of this section is a synthesis of the crucial findings that you discussed earlier in this section.

Conclusion:

Synthesize the major points you found in the results/discussion section. At this point you should use concepts we have discussed in class throughout the semester and tie it into your topic. Also, results that are inconclusive are still good results and can lead to a valuable conclusion.

Bibliography / References:

AMS has a very specific way of referencing previous work. If you mention an article in the body of your text, you need to include a parenthetic reference (Author, date), where date is the year published, and the author is the lead author(s) on the paper. If you include a parenthetical reference, then the full reference would appear in the reference/bibliography section. Please refer yourself to the end of any AMS journal article for the correct bibliographic format.

A comprehensive reference guide: http://www.nps.edu/research/AMS.pdf

NOTE:

1) Units:

AMS format is completely in metric units. Therefore, rainfall/snowfall cannot be in inches, but in meters (centimeters, millimeters). Distance is in kilometers or meters, not miles or feet. Temperature is in Celsius, not Fahrenheit. Pressure is in hPa, not mb (1mb = 1hPa). Wind speeds are generally in m/s or km/h. Knots are allowed as an exception but furlongs per fortnight are "knot".

2) Figures:

Figures should be included in *numerical* order at the end of the paper and discussed in *numerical* order in the text. When you talk about the information pertaining to a figure, you should parenthetically reference in the text, much like a reference for a journal article. For example a sentence might be written as follows. "At 00Z on the 4th of May, an anomalously strong ridge covered most of the eastern United States, bringing the first day of above 30 degree Celsius temperatures to Albany (Fig. 1)." Along with this, a page that lists all of your figures is a good idea before your pages of figures.