Climate chief decodes data for business, farming, research

As the 32-year-old director of the State Climate Office, Ryan Boyles' mission is to turn the reams of weather data now being collected in North Carolina into products that can be used by farmers, engineers, insurance agents, researchers and armchair weathermen.

"Everyone in the state should feel like they have someone they can pick up the phone and call when they have a weather question," Boyles says. "That's what we want to be."

Under Boyles' leadership, the State Climate Office has become a key player in North Carolina's efforts to understand long-term climate patterns and better prepare for droughts, hurricanes and other extreme weather.

Boyles, whose other title is state climatologist, is one of several experts who participate in a weekly conference call to determine how each North Carolina county rates on the U.S. Drought Monitor's classification system.

"Ryan generally makes that call," says Woody Yonts, chairman of the state's Drought Management Advisory Council. "He's our leader."

Boyles has helped make North Carolina's drought-monitoring program one of the most thorough and reliable in the country.

"It's a really good setup they've got going," says Michael Hayes, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "Ryan's really understanding, and humbly so, that there is really a lot more that can be done."

Boyles says a drought's severity can't be measured solely by a lack of rainfall. "If there are no impacts, it's just dry weather," he says.

Equally important, he says, is how that lack of rainfall is affecting crops, local water supplies and the risk of forest fires.

Over the last decade, the climate office has turned 35 agricultural research stations into modern weather stations. The stations help fill in the gaps where the National Weather Service doesn't have stations. They also collect data, such as soil temperature, that the weather service does not collect.

"We actually do a lot of sharing of information," said Jeff Orrock, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Raleigh.

Boyles, who is married with a 2-year-old daughter, grew up in Durham before enrolling in the meteorology program at N.C. State.

"There's always something new, and I got bored pretty easily," he says of his career choice.

With a permanent staff that will soon total nine and a budget nearing $1 million, today's State Climate Office bears little resemblance to the office Boyles joined in 1998.

He was one of two graduate students hired by Sethu Raman, the previous state climatologist and the office's lone employee in 1998. The other graduate student, Dev Niyogi, has since become Indiana's state climatologist.

"I'm retiring, but I have two state climatologists," Raman told the American Association of State Climatologists at its annual meeting in 2006.

After persuading NCSU officials to keep the office open, Raman began acquiring more money through grants and contracts and establishing partnerships with any group that might benefit from the office's data.

"I can ring his glories for hours," Boyles says of Raman.

By the time Raman stepped down in 2006 after ten years as state climatologist, Boyles was already representing the office in a number of its partnerships.

"He's really enthusiastic about getting involved in public service," says Raman, who will soon retire as a professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at NCSU.

Boyles traces his love of public service to his merit badge days.

"I went through the Boy Scout system, and so they sort of drill this concept of cheerful service into your head," he says.

His tenure as state meteorologist comes at a time when interest in climatology is booming, thanks largely to concerns about global climate change, drought and hurricanes. This has caused more people to turn to experts such as Boyles for advice on climate-related issues that have consequences for everyday North Carolinians.

During the recent historic drought, the Raleigh City Council brought Boyles in to help give guidance on how long the dry stretch might last.

The challenge for Boyles and his office is to continue providing useful information while also being clear about what the science can and can't do.

"Building the trust between the science community and the people who need the science is important," he says. "We are still, relatively speaking, a young science."