Report - 2026 Annual Meeting of the European Meteorological Society (EMS) in Utrecht by Juntian Chen

This was my first EMS meeting, and what struck me most was the strong emphasis on applied meteorology. Many presentations focus more on how scientific knowledge can help society. My research focuses on global, large-scale atmospheric dynamics, and I usually approach scientific questions with the aim of understanding the underlying physical processes. Before this meeting, I had given much less thought to how this understanding translates into practical applications, or how my own research might matter beyond the scientific community. Some presentations made this contrast particularly clear. Studies of urban wind fields considered wind around individual buildings, down to the conditions over a particular rooftop. Other work explored how wind farms disturb low-level jets and generate gravity waves, with consequences for wind-energy production. This attention to local detail was quite different from the large-scale perspective I am used to. Such processes often lie outside the main questions we investigate, yet here they were central to addressing practical problems. Listening to these presentations broadened my perspective.

The meeting also prompted me to think about how we communicate our work. Compared with major conferences such as EGU and AGU, EMS felt much smaller. Larger meetings offer a wider pool of potential listeners, including researchers with closely overlapping interests. At a much smaller conference with a strong applied focus, a specialized contribution on atmospheric dynamics may reach fewer people. This makes the way we introduce and explain our research particularly important. While I was explaining my work, a listener told me that I was using too much mathematics for him to follow. Equations that help me explain an idea precisely may not provide the same clarity to someone from another field. How could I convey the physical question and the significance of the results without relying on a shared mathematical background? Making specialized research understandable across different scientific disciplines is an ability that needs continual practice. Simplifying a presentation may make it easier to follow, yet removing too much detail can also remove the basis for a substantive scientific discussion. An accessible introduction can open a conversation, but it does not by itself create the conditions for an in-depth exchange. Finding the balance requires careful thought and practice.

Overall, I am grateful to TRR for supporting this trip, which gave me the opportunity to share my research and gain new perspectives beyond my own field.