Career Path Forecast
 According
to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment is expected to
increase about as fast as the average. Atmospheric scientists should
have favorable job prospects, but opportunities in broadcasting are rare
and highly competitive.
Employment of atmospheric
scientists is projected to grow 11 percent over the 2006-16 decade,
about as fast as the average for all occupations. The National Weather
Service has completed an extensive modernization of its weather
forecasting equipment and finished all hiring of meteorologists needed
to staff the upgraded stations. The Service has no plans to increase the
number of weather stations or the number of meteorologists in existing
stations. Employment of meteorologists in other Federal agencies is
expected to decline.
 In private industry,
on the other hand, job opportunities for atmospheric scientists are
expected to be better than in the Federal Government. As research leads
to continuing improvements in weather forecasting, demand should grow
for private weather consulting firms to provide more detailed
information than has formerly been available, especially to
climate-sensitive industries. Farmers, commodity investors, radio and
television stations, and utilities, transportation, and construction
firms can greatly benefit from additional weather information more
closely targeted to their needs than the general information provided by
the National Weather Service. Additionally, research on seasonal and
other long-range forecasting is yielding positive results, which should
spur demand for more atmospheric scientists to interpret these forecasts
and advise climate-sensitive industries. However, because many customers
for private weather services are in industries sensitive to fluctuations
in the economy, the sales and growth of private weather services depend
on the health of the economy.
 There will continue to
be demand for atmospheric scientists to analyze and monitor the
dispersion of pollutants into the air to ensure compliance with Federal
environmental regulations, but related employment increases are expected
to be small. Efforts toward making and improving global weather
observations also could have a positive impact on employment.
Atmospheric scientists
should have favorable job prospects, as the number of graduates is
expected to be in rough balance with the number of openings.
Opportunities in broadcasting are rare and there will be very few job
openings in this industry. Openings for academic and government
positions should result primarily from replacement needs as older
workers retire or leave the occupation for other reasons.
Note:
Some resources in this section are provided by the the US Department
of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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