The state of diversity, equity and inclusion in the cloud physics community

Diversity in teams improves the quality of scientific research and fosters innovation (Plaut, 2010). In particular, since climate change is a global equity issue, its research demands diverse perspectives. For progress in the understanding of the Earth System, diversity of both scientists and study locations is important. Repeatedly, the geosciences have been shown to be among the least diverse research fields, in which women and other underrepresented groups are exposed to systemic biases (Simarski, 1992; Stokes et al., 2015; Bernard and Cooperdock, 2018). However, assessment of subdisciplines is lacking.

In this project we conduct the first analysis of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the cloud physics community. We combine a metadata analysis of 7064 cloud physics papers which were published between 1970 and 2020 with a survey of ~200 participants from the cloud physics community.
The published papers analysis shows that female first author contributions become evident only after 1995. Today, only ca. 17% of studies in the cloud physics field are led by women. However, the relative retention rate for women equals that of men for both entering the field at the same time period. When we asked the participants if they felt included in the cloud physics community, it was encouraging to see that roughly 70% indicated that they felt always or most of the time included, but 30% felt excluded or only included some of the time. This was especially true for young people (<40; 35%), women (37%) and LGBTIQ+ (44%). 33% of those who identified as Asian, Hispanic, Latinx or Black also felt excluded or only included some of the time. Further, of the 200 participants surveyed, 23% identified as part of a minority group. Almost half of those reported that their minority status had a negative impact on their scientific career, particularly in terms of collaborations, promotions, publishing, funding, salary, and citations.
Geographically, authors from the Global North dominate, with less than 5% of studies led by authors with a tropical affiliation. Even where the location of a field study is tropical, the participation of local tropical authors is low, indicating widespread practice of the so-called helicopter or parachute science. However, while there is a consensus among respondents that collaborations with colleagues from tropical latitudes will advance the community, a large fraction of survey respondents are not planning such collaborations .

The data, results, and perspectives from this work can aid the cloud physics community to become aware of its DEI state, as well as to develop new strategies to improve itself and ultimately achieve a better understanding of the climate system.

 

Bernard, R. E., and E. H. G. Cooperdock. “No Progress on Diversity in 40 Years.” Nature Geoscience (2018), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0116-6.

Plaut, V. C. “Diversity Science: Who Needs It?” Psychological Inquiry (2010), https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2010.492753.

Simarski, L. T. “Examining Sexism in the Geosciences.” Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union (1992), https://doi.org/10.1029/91EO00210.

Stokes, P. J., R. Levine, and K. W. Flessa. “Choosing the Geoscience Major: Important Factors, Race/Ethnicity, and Gender.” Journal of Geoscience Education (2015), https://doi.org/10.5408/14-038.1.