Meteorology & Climate Change Skepticism
26/06/08 18:29
Your local TV
meteorologist seems like she or he should be
my
natural ally: a
person in the local media market you trust, who is
educated in climate science, and who can relate
climate science and climate change trends to the
daily news. These meteorologists should be the
local evangelists of climate change. Sadly, they
are often not.
The mystery is, why not? A few national-level networks have taken a strong stand on climate change issues. The Weather Channel, for instance, hired a climatologist whose sole focus is on climate change. She plays an enormously positive role for open-minded people who are willing to learn from a climate scientist with media skills.
Local meteorologists are far more mixed bag. A recent Yale Climate Media Forum story on the issue was very enlightening and disturbing. In fact, it was downright personally embarrassing. My home town in east Texas has never been a bastion of progressive politics (at least since the Spanish and French came to town), but KLTV’s team of TV meteorologists recently banded together to produce a local program that apparently argues that (a) the climate is shifting, but (b) humans have not caused these shifts. The explanation for the “hype” is that scientists are seeking grant money and a radical economic agenda. The climate itself is shifting in response to “normal climate cycles.” In other words, the canon of climate change work is bad science promulgated by dangerous lefties. My feelings about Tyler reached a new low when I read that article, awash in shame. But other places aren’t much cleaner.
Oregon had a man who called himself a state climatologist (though he was not) who said similar things; based at Oregon State University where there are many people working in climate science, he became a local pariah, academically speaking, and was eventually fired by the governor. Err, asked to “retire.” San Diego has a TV meteorologist who has similarly unleashed and ranted online (referenced on the Yale article).
Perhaps the sadly ironic part is that the US professional association of meteorologists has come out strongly endorsing the findings of the IPCC with a clear statement that the climate is changing, primarily as a result of human activity, and that media meteorologists have a duty to educate the public about these issues.
What’s behind these dangerous folks? Why are so many a force for evil skepticism? They’re much more dangerous than people like Rush Limbaugh, who are clearly ideologically driven and have no veneer of science in their rants.
In Mobile, Alabama, I had a chance to find the answer. One of the more famous TV meteorologists in the U.S. is based in Washington, D.C., and was brought into a small meeting I was also attending, along with a number of other scientists, conservation NGO staff, and some support personnel. Our nominal focus was on some gifted high school students who had been affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and who wanted to learn more about climate change and how to become leaders on this issue. I’ll call the famous meteorologist W, partly for grim irony.
He came in for a single day out of the total of 10 days in Mobile and gave a nice talk about emissions issues, some basic climate science, and lots of images and visual metaphors to be able to get the students to understand the basis of climate change in a more visceral, intuitive way. In a grandfatherly passionate way, he was very effective. I half-listened, wondering about his stomach-turning colleagues.
At the end of his talk, he scanned the room: Any questions? My hand shot up. He cocked a brow. Yes?
I mentioned KLTV, San Diego, and Oregon. Infamous, all of them, he said. You want to know why, right?
That’s a complicated question. Not all meteorologists have a college or university degree in meteorology. Many are media studies people who were sports casters before, and they may have some concern about the politicisation of climate change. They may be ideologically opposed. They may just not really understand what the science is. Meteorological models — weather models — can look forward a couple of days with rapidly declining accuracy. The forecast for tomorrow may be pretty good, but three days from now is pretty tough. So when a lot of meteorologists hear about modeling they think of the kinds of models they know. But climate models are really different. Climate is different than weather, and the complexity and reliability of these models is much higher over long timescales, even really long timescales.
You could tell he was pained by this discussion. Some of his people were obstructing the path of right action. He felt ashamed. I thought about Tyler. I knew how he felt.
