Atmospheric and Space Scientists

High pay & lowrisk
Minimal Risk
Low High

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Occupation snapshot

What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
5.7/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

11% (Minimal Risk)

Minimal Risk (0-20%): This occupation appears difficult to replace end-to-end with current or near-future automation, including AI software and robotics. Roles in this range usually depend on human judgement, creativity, care, leadership, specialist expertise, or adapting to messy real-world situations. AI and machines may still change parts of the work, but the occupation is likely to remain a distinct human role.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Human strengths important in this job

These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.

Decision-making and problem solving

Very important
Why this matters
Analyze information, weigh tradeoffs, and choose the best solution—especially when situations are ambiguous, high-stakes, or have real-world consequences.
Jobs that also use this strength

Communicating with people outside the organization

Very important
Why this matters
Represents the organization to customers, the public, or government—handling questions, concerns, and relationship-building through conversations, writing, calls, or email.
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Active learning

Very important
Why this matters
Keeps learning from new information and applying it to make better decisions now and in the future, especially when situations change.
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Thinking creatively

Quite important
Why this matters
Coming up with original ideas and designs—creating new concepts, products, systems, or artistic work. This kind of open-ended invention and taste-based judgment is harder to automate end-to-end than routine, rule-based tasks.
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Social perceptiveness

Quite important
Why this matters
Noticing others’ emotions and reactions in the moment and adjusting what you say or do based on why they’re responding that way.
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Show 3 more strengths

Coordinating others’ work

Quite important
Why this matters
Bringing people together, assigning tasks, and keeping a group aligned so work gets done.
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Coaching and developing others

Quite important
Why this matters
Helps people learn and improve through coaching, mentoring, and feedback. This relies on trust, motivation, and adapting guidance to each person—work that’s hard to replace end-to-end with automation.
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Developing objectives and strategies

Quite important
Why this matters
Sets long-term goals and chooses strategies and actions to reach them, weighing tradeoffs and adapting plans as conditions change.
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What users think

Based on 183 votes

39% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted there's a low chance this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 11% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Atmospheric and Space Scientists will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

Based on user votes over time

View sentiment trend

How opinions have changed over time

Pay & outlook

Wages

Very high paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Atmospheric and Space Scientists was $97,450 ($47 per hour).

The median annual wage for Atmospheric and Space Scientists was 96.9% higher than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.

View wage trend

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Atmospheric and Space Scientists' job openings is expected to rise 0.7% by 2034

View employment trend

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Volume

Significantly lower range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 8,780 people employed as 'Atmospheric and Space Scientists' within the United States.

This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 17 thousand people are employed as 'Atmospheric and Space Scientists'.

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What people are saying (8)

Leave a comment
Silva
23 Jul 2025 19:54
AI has been in use for the whole atmospheric and space science sector for a long time. It won't fully replace human input because humans still need to correct errors and also make models and research. However, some parts, like TV meteorologists, will probably be replaced as people rely more and more on digital technology without the need to watch the news.
oddguy (No chance)
01 Jul 2025 11:13
Society need people educated in the field.
whetherweather101 (Moderate)
08 May 2024 12:05
AI will soon (and already is) predicting weather as or more accurately than human forecasters.
Thomas (Highly likely)
01 Dec 2022 22:56
I went to school for this. I think that computer processing power will increase over the years. When this happens, the grid cells of the model will become smaller (look up climate modeling). This has happened for decades now. Eventually, the grid cells of the model become so small that the errors in model forecasts will decrease leaving no need for humans to fix them. This doesn't apply to research scientists.
atmospheric scientist contractor person (Uncertain)
06 Jan 2022 15:20
There are many areas where AI could replace the work of scientists, but the adoption of new technology often lags behind what is seen in industry. This is partly due to the fact that this field is driven by government funding, which is often allocated inefficiently compared to the private sector. In addition, scientist salaries are low and require extensive schooling (Master's/PhD), so change is happening very slowly.
Mike (No chance)
21 Jan 2021 04:23
There is a difference between weather forecaster (already replaced) and atmospheric/space science.
Chris (Moderate)
23 Oct 2019 16:16
At least the weather forecasting side, automation has already taken over the job. Models are getting so much better and in the next decade it will likely be unnecessary to 'forecast' in the traditional sense.
Nicholas
12 Aug 2019 20:07
Forecasting is only a tiny part of what atmospheric and space scientist do. As space scientist I do not work with forecasting at all. Then given the poor amount of data, the result is also very poor.
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Job description

Investigate atmospheric phenomena and interpret meteorological data, gathered by surface and air stations, satellites, and radar to prepare reports and forecasts for public and other uses. Includes weather analysts and forecasters whose functions require the detailed knowledge of meteorology.

O*NET-SOC code: 19-2021.00