Karyn Sawyer: A Hidden Gem of Atmospheric Science
Karyn Sawyer and her staff at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in October, 1990. Source: “Reflections at 50,” Presentation by Richard Anthes to the UCAR Members Annual Meeting, October 5, 2010, via NCAR/UCAR archives.
One way that scientists learn about weather and climate is through campaigns that make experimental measurements, often in remote places.
The first episode of the Time and Temperature podcast profiles a woman whose behind-the-scenes work makes those measurements possible. Karyn Sawyer is inspiring and fun, and her stories are remarkable. Take a listen!
Learn More
Read or listen to the complete Karyn Sawyer Oral History Interview at the NCAR Archives.
Podcast Transcript
Karyn Sawyer: Ok… I don't have a penis and I don't have a PhD, but I'm sure as hell your director. So figure it out.
Roger Turner: Welcome to Time and Temperature, the history podcast for people who care about our atmosphere. I’m Roger Turner.
How do you study something as spread out and transient as the weather? You can’t hold it in a lab. You can’t reproduce it. But you can measure it. And if you measure it in a lot of places, in a lot of ways, at the same time, you can begin to get a fuller picture of what atmospheric phenomena are like.
Big, coordinated measurement campaigns are a characteristic of atmospheric science, especially in the decades since World War II. Campaigns study the atmosphere by coordinating observations, made using made different instrument and observing platforms, like airplanes, balloons, satellites and radar. These campaigns have generated data that is essential to things we all care about, like climate change, el Niño and better weather forecasting.
But it takes a huge amount of work to run some of these campaigns. Who does that work? In the 1970s, one amazing woman emerged at the National Center for Atmospheric research, in Boulder, Colorado.
Producer Serena Vargulick brings us her story.
Serena Vargulick: When it comes to learning about science, the people you typically hear about are, well, scientists.
Sawyer: Oh, I was always a nerd. I did the science fairs when I was in high school. I made a Wilson cloud chamber. I loved science. And I had actually started out thinking I would be a scientist …
Vargulick: But what about the others? The non-scientists, the people working behind the scenes to make the incredible work that scientists do possible? To be completely honest, I hadn’t given much thought to such contributors of science myself … until I came across an oral history with Karyn Sawyer.
Sawyer has been the logistics director of NCAR field campaigns. She organizes all the material stuff and permissions that scientists need so they can do science in the field. She has planned more than 30 campaigns that spanned over 125 countries. These campaigns have played a huge role in helping scientists forecast the weather better, as well as understand things like El Niño and climate change.
She’s proved that you don’t have to be a scientist, or a dude, to advance our scientific understanding.
Sawyer: I loved science. And I had actually started out thinking I would be a scientist, but when I got to imaginary numbers in mathematics my brain just declined the whole thing.
Vargulick: But that wasn’t enough to stop her. True to her character, Sawyer figured out another way to pursue her love affair with science.
Sawyer: I walked into NCAR and applied, and they hired me the next day.
Vargulick: She was hired as a secretary in 1972. But soon she was doing a job that nobody realized required a specialist.
Sawyer: I just started doing it, and nobody complained; and it turned out what I was born to do.
Vargulick: One of her most important projects took place in the South Pacific in 1992. Scientists were there to measure the interaction between the Tropical Ocean and the Global Atmosphere. The name was a long acronym that everyone shortened to “Toga-Core” to make it easier to talk about.
Sawyer: Oh man. I was the logistics director for TOGA COARE. So I planned all the operations— not the science part of it, but the logistical parts of it. We had 14 research vessels; 8 airplanes; and 1500 people in the field operating 24-7 for four months. The research area covered the sovereign territory of 19 countries. So I did the research permits; I did all the contracts to re-provision the ships; all the contracts for jet fuel; negotiated with the headhunters in New Guinea, to put a radar up in New Guinea. I mean, it took me five years to put that together and I was virtually commuting to the South Pacific the whole time.
Vargulick: When it comes to risky decisions, Karyn prefers retroactive forgiveness to proactive permission.
Sawyer: One of my operating mantras was that sometimes it's easier to get forgiveness than permission. And if I was doing something really edgy—I believe that I always exercised good judgment, and I took calculated risks, but sometimes there was no time to ask for permission; or I was worried the permission wouldn't be forthcoming and I knew it would be successful, so I just did it.
Vargulick: Sawyer’s mantra served her well the first day of TOGA COARE, the biggest campaign she ever did.
Sawyer: The first day of the field campaign, I was burning $50 or $60,000 dollars a day in per diem, because everybody was in the South Pacific. We were strung all over the South Pacific. I had so much airfreight in the system, going to the South Pacific, that the airfreight system stopped moving.
So I called people I knew in Sydney, Australia, and I chartered a jet freighter and I went around and picked up all of our freight and delivered it to the Solomon Islands, into northern Australia, so we could start the project. That was $70,000 dollars that wasn't in anybody's budget; I didn't ask permission, I just did it, because I needed to get the project going. If I did that today, UCAR would probably send me to jail.
Vargulick: Without careful planning and strong follow-through, these field campaigns wouldn’t produce much science. But advance planning can be surprisingly dangerous.
Sawyer: I hate snakes. And they terrify me. And in these places, they’re all two-step snakes: You get bitten and you get two steps and you die.
Vargulick: In the early 1980s, Sawyer found herself gearing up for a site expedition on the island of Java with the US solar eclipse coordinator at the time, Ron LaCount.
Sawyer: Ron was an old Marine, and he had a big Fu Manchu moustache, and he smoked a pipe. He was one of these guys that was like "whomph whomph … Girls shouldn't have this kind of a job, whomph whomph whomph."
Vargulick: Their plan was to drive up the spine of Java, and around the coast, where the two would then site their telescopes to get a good view across the water. Their plan was delayed, however, when Sawyer realized that the jeep they would be driving didn’t have a top on it.
Sawyer: You're just—wimpy women…
Vargulick: Karyn remembers Ron grumbling. He was furious at the delay in getting started. But half an hour into their drive, Ron discovered why Karyn insisted on getting a top for their jeep.
Sawyer: There was this big plop—and the roof, the canvas roof kind of came down, and this green tree snake stuck his head down the side of the roof of the jeep, looking at me. I just blew out of my seat belt and jumped between Ron and the steering wheel, into the dirt on the other side of the jeep I was laying in the dirt, and then I started to laugh. Because he was really agitated, and the jeep shuttered to a stop. And he got stuck in his seat belt. He finally got loose, and landed in the dirt next to me; he bit his pipe in half, because he was so agitated. He just turned around in the dirt, and he looked at me, and he said, “Don't say a god damn word.”
Vargulick:That was the last Karyn heard from Ron about “wimpy women.” And they actually became quite close friends. But Sawyer experienced gender-based condescension from plenty of other men.
Another time, Sawyer was put in charge of several men, who weren’t exactly thrilled to have a woman as their leader. After about six months of the unhappy men dragging their feet, Sawyer had enough. She called a one-topic staff meeting to help the men understand the arrangement.
Sawyer: Ok… I don't have a penis and I don't have a PhD, but I'm sure as hell your director. So figure it out.
Vargulick: And they did.
Sawyer’s leadership has helped advance atmospheric science. For Instance, the measurements of high ocean temperatures during TOGA COARE have helped scientists to predict the intensity of El Niño cycles.
In 2013, the American Meteorological Society recognized Sawyer’s work with a special award celebrating her “invaluable and exemplary support and organization of numerous atmospheric and oceanic field expeditions over more than three decades.”
Sawyer: I love the wild parts of the world, and a lot of this science gets done in the wild parts of the world. It was incredible. Really incredible.
Vargulick: After almost 5 decades on the job, the only thing Sawyer seems unable to decisively execute is her retirement. Two attempts down and she continues to serve as the Director of the Joint Office for Science Support. As challenging as her work may be, the prospect of changing the world for the better has fueled her perseverance.
Sawyer: I absolutely believe, still, that science should and can transcend political differences, and boundaries, and time zones.
Vargulick: Sawyer is one of the hidden gems of atmospheric science.
And she even runs a jewelry business, which she got into after her first retirement stint. She sells some of what she’s collected from her more than a hundred global expeditions. Each piece carries a cultural and historical context that Karyn strives to share with others around the world. Some rustic, some sophisticated, and all with their own unique charm.
