TV Weatherman

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Elliot_Abrams**_(meteorologist)

an 10 24

A progressive policy group in North Carolina was among those expressing alarm on Sunday as news spread that federal emergency workers were forced to evacuate an area hit hard by Hurricane Helene late last month after officials warned that "armed militias" were "hunting" hurricane response teams.

But the news didn't come as a shock to Carolina Forward, an independent think tank, considering that it came after weeks of lies from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump about the Biden administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) response to the hurricane.

"This is what MAGA does," said Carolina Forward on social media. "Eventually, their lies have real world consequences."

As The Washington PostreportedSunday evening, a U.S. Forest Service official sent an urgent message to other federal agencies involved in the recovery on Saturday afternoon, saying FEMA had advised all federal responders in Rutherford County, North Carolina "to stand down and evacuate the county immediately."

National Guard troops in the area, said the official, "had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA."

The message was verified by two federal officials.

"It's terrible because a lot of these folks who need assistance are refusing it because they believe the stuff people are saying about FEMA and the government... And it's sad because they are probably the ones who need the help the most."

Emergency responders moved to a "safe area" and paused their work in Rutherford County, where they had been delivering supplies and clearing trees from roads in order to help search-and-rescue crews.

"Let's be clear: Armed militia are terrorizing FEMA rescue workers and causing important work to stop because Donald Trump spread lies and disinformation about the hurricane. This is on the Republican candidate for president with help from Elon Musk," saidmedia critic Jennifer Schulze, referring to the billionaire owner of X who has used the social media platform to amplify Trump's lies. "Shameful and disqualifying."

The forced pause in the work is just the latest example of the measurable impact of statements made by Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), about FEMA in the wake of hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned last Thursday that federal employees, thousands of whom have been deployed to states including North Carolina and Florida to help with the response to the devastating storms, have received threats in recent days. Meteorologists have received angry messages from people convinced that weather experts and government officials "are creating and directing hurricanes," The Guardianreportedlast week.

"I have had a bunch of people saying I created and steered the hurricane, there are people assuming we control the weather," Katie Nickolaou, a meteorologist in Michigan, toldThe Guardian. "I have had to point out that a hurricane has the energy of 10,000 nuclear bombs and we can't hope to control that. But it's taken a turn to more violent rhetoric, especially with people saying those who created Milton should be killed."

President Joe Biden was driven to address Trump's lies about the hurricane response last week, saying the disinformation was "undermining confidence in the incredible rescue and recovery work that has already been taken and will continue to be taken."

Since Helene swept through a number of states late last month, catching communities in western North Carolina off-guard with devastating flooding, Trump has baselessly claimed that:

Biden ignored a call for help from Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who denied Trump's claim;
He received unspecified "reports" that North Carolina officials were "going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas";
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, spent "all her FEMA money" on housing for undocumented immigrants; and
FEMA is providing only $750 to people who lost their homes.

Riva Duncan, a former Forest Service official in hard-hit Asheville, North Carolina, told the Postthat locals have told FEMA employees who have arrived with aid to to help with repairs, "We don't want your help here."

"It's terrible because a lot of these folks who need assistance are refusing it because they believe the stuff people are saying about FEMA and the government," Duncan told the newspaper. "And it's sad because they are probably the ones who need the help the most."

In the town of Chimney Rock in Rutherford County, FEMA has shifted to working in secure areas in fixed locations instead of going door to door to assess community needs, the Post reported, "out of an abundance of caution."

Matt Ortega, a web developer in Oakland, California, said the impact of Trump's baseless claims about the hurricane response mirror that of his earlier lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, where schools and government business ground to a halt in recent weeks due to bomb threats stemming from claims that Haitian people were stealing neighbors' pets and eating them.

"Trump and Republicans' FEMA lies [incur] a debt, just as they did in Springfield," said Ortega. "The people who pay it are children whose schools are closed due to bomb threats in Springfield and recovery aid workers when militias are 'out hunting FEMA.'"

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https://www.alternet.org/climate-change-2661712641/

no lnx an 6 23

Top Des Moines meteorologist resigns after receiving death threats for climate change coverage

Alex Henderson June 22, 2023

In Des Moines, Iowa, Chris Gloninger has been the top meteorologist at KCCI-TV, the city's CBS affiliate. Gloninger has been reporting on a subject that meteorologists are well aware of: climate change — and some far-right MAGA Republicans have responded with threats of violence.

On Wednesday, June 21, Gloninger announced, on Twitter, that he was leaving the station — and cited the threats as a factor in his decision.

In his statement, Gloninger explained, "18 years. 7 stations. 5 states. I am bidding farewell to TV to embark on a new journey dedicated to helping solve the climate crisis. After a death threat stemming from my climate coverage last year and resulting PTSD, in addition to family health issues, I've decided to begin this journey now."

READ MORE: Biden to fund California power grid upgrade in climate change push

The Des Moines Register reports that in September 2022, a man in Lenox, Iowa was fined $105 for harassing Gloninger in a series of e-mails. One of them read, "You are worthless Biden puppet, a liar, a conspiracy theorist, and an idiot!!! You give Iowa a bad name, GO HOME B—-."

Gloninger, according to the Register, has been with KCCI-TV since July 6, 2021, and he will be leaving this July 7.

The meteorologist also announced the departure on KCCI, telling viewers, "I did receive a threat last summer that left us a little bit shaken, and I've been working through the healing process.But during that time, both of our families had unexpected serious health issues. Family is important."

Gloninger stressed that leaving television will allow him to make climate activism his main focus.

READ MORE: State Farm axes new California home insurance policies citing 'escalating risk' of climate change: report

The meteorologist explained, "Stepping away from TV will allow my wife, and I to help (family members) in their time of need, and will also allow me to make a difference full time in something that I'm very passionate about in the realm of climate change and finding solutions, being able to adapt and mitigate to this issue that we have globally."

READ MORE: 'What a weirdo': Twitter shreds 'cartoon character' Republican for declaring 'there is no climate change'

The Des Moines Register's full report is available at this link.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Marjorie Taylor Greene stuns experts with scientifically illiterate rant on climate change ›

Lauren Boebert says liberals want Earth Day to be about climate change 'to divide us' ›

'You've got to be kidding me': MSNBC host spooked by revelation that climate change is making fungus deadlier ›

What's to Ensure Future Data Get Collected?

At the time Santorum's bill was introduced, Paul Sandifer was working as a senior scientist at NOAA. He remembers how concerned scientists within the agency were then at the prospect of privatizing data. "Those concerns are some of what I'm worried about now," he said.

"If the collection of data is turned over to the business community, what's to ensure that the data that are really needed for the future get collected? Particularly if it's given over to politically motivated private sector folks," said Sandifer, who was the chief science advisor for NOAA's National Ocean Service when he retired at the end of 2014.

In the last few months, in particular, the strength of NOAA's data and forecasting has been evident as Americans have been caught up in several natural disasters, including wildfires and hurricanes.

"Think about the recent disasters: in every one of those situations there were NOAA government officials talking about the information they had on hand and people understood the validity of that information," Sandifer said. "It wasn't coming from one side or another—it was the right information."

Another NOAA Nominee with Business Interests

Myers is not the only recent NOAA nominee with a business interest in NOAA's work.

In early October, Trump nominated Neil Jacobs to be the assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction. Jacobs is the chief atmospheric scientist for Panasonic Weather Solutions, a private company that, like AccuWeather, has worked toward the privatization of certain data.

In July, Jacobs testified before the House Science Committee, advocating for the proprietary model that his company developed, which he said was "better" than NOAA models. Panasonic currently sells some its data to NOAA—a relationship that could fall under Jacobs' purview if confirmed for the NOAA position.

In announcing the nominations, the Trump administration touted the business acumen of both men.

Myers' Family Business Presents a Conundrum

Rosenberg worried in a blog post that the companies' past ambitions may come to fruition.

"It is easy to see how private weather companies like AccuWeather or Panasonic could directly benefit from decisions made by Myers and Jacobs," he wrote.

In an interview with InsideClimate News, he elaborated: "Myers is going to make decisions on what happens to the Weather Service, the climate programs and so on. And that will directly affect the business that he has built, his family owns and presumably he goes back to."

It presents a conundrum, Rosenberg said: "Does he recuse himself from those decisions? Then he's heading an agency and recuses himself from a quarter of decisions. And if he doesn't, how does he serve the public interest?"

A third NOAA nominee, Admiral Timothy Gallaudet, who is a former Navy oceanographer, has been named to assistant secretary of commerce for conservation and management. His nomination was met with praise by members of the scientific community.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

'Put Up or Shut Up': North Carolina Meteorologist Calls Out Climate Deniers

Frustrated by non-experts taking to the internet to dispute the science behind human-made climate change, North Carolina meteorologist Greg Fishel issued a challenge to climate deniers, urging them to "put up or shut up" and "submit your work the way real scientists do, and see where it takes you."

The News & Observer highlighted Fishel's challenge, which he posted on Facebook, in a May 22 article, reporting that Fishel "went off on people who question the science behind climate change."

The article noted that for most of his career, Fishel, who is the chief meteorologist for NBC affiliate WRAL in Raleigh, did not believe that humans contributed significantly to global warming. "But several years ago, he says he decided he wasn't being open-minded about the issue and began to study what climate scientists were saying about it. He now approaches the issue on the air and on social media with the zeal of a convert."

Indeed, Fishel is among a growing number of meteorologists who acknowledge that human-caused climate change is real. Some of those meteorologists are urging their colleagues to discuss climate change on the air.

Fishel concluded his post by challenging climate deniers to submit their findings to one of the American Meteorological Society's peer-reviewed journals, adding, "So prove me wrong bloggers and essayists. Submit your work the way real scientists do, and see where it takes you. Uncover that bias and corruption you're so convinced is present. If you end up being correct, society will owe you a huge debt of gratitude. If you're wrong, stop muddying the scientific waters with ideological trash."

From the The News & Observer:

For most of his 36 years broadcasting the weather in the Triangle, Fishel also held a contrarian view about climate change. He didn't believe that humans had much to do with warming the Earth's atmosphere and would say as much when the topic came up on the air.

But several years ago, he says he decided he wasn't being open-minded about the issue and began to study what climate scientists were saying about it. He now approaches the issue on the air and on social media with the zeal of a convert.

If someone does have "a critical piece to the puzzle no other scientist has," Fishel implored them to submit their findings to one of the American Meteorological Society's peer reviewed journals for publication.

"If they are rejected, and the author feels unfairly, then make public each and every one of the reviewers' comments for the entire world to see," Fishel wrote. "If there is bias and corruption in the peer review process, everyone needs to know about it so this flawed process can be halted and corrected."

But Fishel said he doubts any of the climate change deniers "has the guts to do this" and said he thinks they'll continue "with their pathetic excuse for science education.

Fox Business disparaged actor George Clooney as “irresponsible” and “foolish” for allegedly “blaming” Super Typhoon Haiyan on climate change. However, Clooney merely stated that regardless of “whether or not this particular storm” can be attributed to climate change, denying the existence of manmade climate change—as those censuring Clooney have—is “ridiculous.”

Super Typhoon Haiyan was one of the strongest tropical cyclones in world history when it struck the Philippines on Nov. 7, killing as many as 10,000 people. Scientists have stated that intense tropical cyclones such as Haiyan are expected to become more frequent as the earth warms, although many caution against attributing Haiyan directly to climate change. Sea level rise due to climate change also worsens the deadly storm surge for tropical cyclones such as Haiyan and Hurricane Sandy.

In an apparent response to a question about the typhoon, Gravity co-star Clooney criticized those who ignore the vast majority of scientists on climate change:

Well it’s just a stupid argument. I mean, whether or not this particular storm is any one—if you have 99 percent of doctors who tell you ‘you are sick’ and one percent that says ‘ah, you’re fine,’ you probably want to hang out with, check it up for the 99. You know what I mean? I—the idea that we ignore that we are in some way involved in climate change is ridiculous. What’s the worst thing that happens? We clean up the earth a little bit? And you know, yeah, I find this to be the most ridiculous argument ever.

On Monday, Fox Business host Stuart Varney and Fox News’ senior meteorologist Janice Dean harangued Clooney for supposedly “us[ing] the tragedy to push his climate change agenda,” saying his statement was “irresponsible” and “foolish”—without ever airing or quoting what he actually said.

Dean also criticized Clooney for weighing in on climate change because he does not have a “seal of approval” from the American Meteorological Society (AMS), as she does. However, AMS officials have criticized broadcast meteorologists such as Dean for offering “nonscientific” opinions on climate change:

---Super Typhoon Haiyan was one of the strongest tropical cyclones in world history when it struck the Philippines on Nov. 7, killing as many as 10,000 people. Scientists have stated that intense tropical cyclones such as Haiyan are expected to become more frequent as the earth warms, although many caution against attributing Haiyan directly to climate change. Sea level rise due to climate change also worsens the deadly storm surge for tropical cyclones such as Haiyan and Hurricane Sandy.

In an apparent response to a question about the typhoon, Gravity co-star Clooney criticized those who ignore the vast majority of scientists on climate change:

Well it’s just a stupid argument. I mean, whether or not this particular storm is any one—if you have 99 percent of doctors who tell you ‘you are sick’ and one percent that says ‘ah, you’re fine,’ you probably want to hang out with, check it up for the 99. You know what I mean? I—the idea that we ignore that we are in some way involved in climate change is ridiculous. What’s the worst thing that happens? We clean up the earth a little bit? And you know, yeah, I find this to be the most ridiculous argument ever.

On Monday, Fox Business host Stuart Varney and Fox News’ senior meteorologist Janice Dean harangued Clooney for supposedly “us[ing] the tragedy to push his climate change agenda,” saying his statement was “irresponsible” and “foolish”—without ever airing or quoting what he actually said.

Dean also criticized Clooney for weighing in on climate change because he does not have a “seal of approval” from the American Meteorological Society (AMS), as she does. However, AMS officials have criticized broadcast meteorologists such as Dean for offering “nonscientific” opinions on climate change:

Increasing numbers of broadcast meteorologists, to whom the public looks for information and guidance on climate change and global warming, are not offering scientific information but rather, all too often, nonscientific personal opinions in the media, including personal blogs. Alarmingly, many weathercasters and certified broadcast meteorologists dismiss, in most cases without any sold scientific arguments, the conclusions of the National Research Council,Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other peer-reviewed research.

Dean, who has no educational background in climate science (a field significantly different from weather forecasting), previously promoted the counter-scientific idea that the globe may be cooling based on a single year’s data in a FoxNews.com blog. Varney, the host of Fox Business’ Varney & Co., has also denied climate change in the past, calling it a “scientific conspiracy,” although in 2012 he acknowledged that a study provided “hard evidence” of climate change.

Fox Business was not the only one in the conservative media to jump on Clooney’s comments. The Blaze said that “left-wing” Clooney “used the deadly Super Typhoon to slam climate-change skeptics” (capitalization removed), citing the popular conservative aggregator Weasel Zippers, which called Clooney “ignorant and self-righteous.”

coleman dissed by WC http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/29/weather-channel-global-warming_n_6072054.html?ir=Green

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Posted at 01:30 PM ET, 01/23/2012

Global warming activists launch misguided campaign against skeptical TV weathercasters

By Jason Samenow

If you present the weather on TV and you reject that global warming is the result of human activities, the spotlight on you is hotter than ever. But the attention is a colossal waste of energy.

Coinciding with this week’s American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting in New Orleans, the groups 350.org, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Citizen Engagement Lab have launched a campaign that exposes television weathercasters who take a contrarian stance on climate change science.

The campaign, called Forecast the Facts, launched a website that identifies 47 TV weathercasters by name who have publicly expressed climate change views considered outside of the mainstream. (It is also pressuring the American Meteorological Society to strengthen its position statement on the science.)

This confrontational approach is the wrong approach and promises to only further divide TV weathercasters whose views on the issue of climate change are already polarized.

The rationale for the campaign are results froma survey conducted by George Mason University in 2010* that found 63% of weathercasters believe global warming is due mainly to natural causes compared to just 31% who think it’s mostly a result of human causes. Some 27 percent of weathercasters referred to global warming as “a scam.” Whereas, the prevailing view among publishing climate scientists is that the Earth is warming primarily as a result of human activities.

Studies have shown some weathercasters don’t have the most reliable understanding of climate science and uneven levels of education. A 2002 studyby Emory researcher Kris Wilson found many weathercasters held misconceptions on a range of climate science issues and their “politics” had the greatest bearing on that knowledge. Furthermore, some weathercasters are not scientists but broadcast journalists. And even for those with meteorology degrees, many of the degree programs do not require coursework in climate change. A 2011 survey of weathercasters at George Mason found only 42 percent of respondents had participated in climate change continuing education courses.

But the “Forecast the Facts”campaign makes no initiative to engage with weathercasters and enhance their education.

The campaign website asserts “viewers turning into their weather report deserve to be told the truth about climate change.” It’s hard to disagree that weathercasters should stay up to speed on climate change and pass along that knowledge to viewers. Maybe “Forecast the Facts” should be providing resources to make this happen rather than conducting a smear campaign.

This is not to say weathercasters shouldn’t bear some responsibility in becoming educated about climate change science. Nor does it absolve them from impartially communicating it.

In an editorial published in the Bulletin of American Meteorological Society several years ago, WJLA meteorologist Bob Ryan and NBC Telemundo meteorologist John Toohey-Morales took some of their peers to task for failing to set aside personal opinions in discussing climate change, writing:

If we “experts” communicate conflicting information, conveying personal opinions with no scientific basis, the public can become confused and often collectively “tune out” of the issue just when it requires the most attention. The same would happen if we gave conflicting personal opinions during dangerous weather events. When we stray from objectivity in communicating the latest scientific findings, we do the public a disservice.

Ryan and Toohey-Morales took a constructive approach - making a passionate but respectful appeal to their peers when they felt they had gone astray. But when anoutside activistgroup flies onto the scene outing individuals and calling them “deniers,” it’s not going make their targets more open-minded nor motivate them to seek out the latest journals online. Instead, it may alienate them and further entrench a narrow perspective

In my experience talking to weathercasters and other individuals whose views about climate change don’t seem grounded in science, I’ve found it’s most effective to dispassionately approach the subject and simply discuss the evidence. Just as important: treat the person with respect and show you understand their perspective.

For example, I’ve seen some weathercasters fall into the skeptics camp as a result of overstatements by activists, politicians and journalists, who have made predictions of certain catastrophe and blamed global warming for every conceivable natural disaster.

Such hyperbole might be overcome by demonstrating that, in reality, global warming forecasts include a range of possibilities, and, while many are concerning, they are not all dire. And by being clear that, while scientists have found global warming may intensify some types of extreme weather (i.e. heat waves and heavy precipitation events), few if any claim global warming is the root cause.

Establishing common ground with the unconvinced and acknowledging climate change uncertainties and even points of contention may make them more receptive to key, well-established findings such as:

• Greenhouse gas concentrations have risen to levels unprecedented in hundreds of thousands of years due to human activities

• Many independent datasets indicate warming of the climate system is unequivocal

• Several lines of evidence suggest a large amount of the recent observed warming is due to human activities

• Due to the loading of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the Earth is virtually assured to continue warming; and this warming will impact humans and the environment

In other words, by plainly discussing the facts and describing the science in terms that embrace a spectrum of possibilities and perspectives, inroads might be made with those who are difficult to persuade or who view the issue through an ideological rather than scientific lens

No doubt it’s easy to become very frustrated or even angry when weathercasters say things like “we’re talking about the greatest hoax in history” in reference to global warming. And spending the time to have a conversation with those that may vehemently disagree with you or are even hostile to your perspective is hard, thankless work. Not to mention, it won’t always work.

But a sincere effort to respectfully make science-based arguments and carry on a dialogue sure beats the tactic of denigrating those who disagree with you.

Groups like the National Environmental Education Foundation (via Earth Gauge) and the McCormick Foundation have taken this kind of constructive approach.

I’m not sure what the alternative approach taken by “Forecast the Facts” will accomplish, aside from additional meltdown in this overheated debate.

Alternative perspective: Forecast The Facts Exposes America’s Climate-Denier TV Weathermen

(* Note, a more recent 2011 George Mason study found 19 percent attribute the changes primarily to human causes, 29 percent natural causes, 34 percent an equal mix, 8 percent responded they don’t think the Earth is warming, and 9 percent answered “don’t know”)

180

http://grist.org/news/here-are-a-couple-of-weather-experts-who-actually-believe-in-climate-change/

http://forecastthefacts.org/weathercaster_watch/

I think we need to have a serious discussion in this country about defining who a meteorologist is and why anyone can blindly use the term. This post is probably going to offend a few people…including some of my friends who are ‘meteorologists’ in the TV business.This conversation happens all the time in the meteorology community…many times behind closed doors. I have seen this topic bounce around the Internet a couple of times…but it’s time to set the record straight…once and for all.

Many of the “meteorologists” that you see on TV have an online degree (or certificate) from Mississippi State University. The TV business defines this as having “meteorological certification”. Mississippi state University offers an online broadcast meteorology course (ie certificate) to any high school graduate over a 3 year period.

Let’s be honest…this is not Mississippi State’s fault. They are catering to a niche market. Let’s also state a fact:

1) Mississippi State does have an on-campus 4 year B.S. and M.S. degree in Meteorology.

And it’s fine (although not recommended) for many TV professionals that need a quick and dirty way to gain some credibility in weather by completing an online meteorology course.

But here’s what is not fine: TV professionals who receive an online broadcast meteorology certificate from Mississippi State should not be allowed to call themselves a “meteorologist”…period.

Why? Mississippi State’s broadcast meteorology certificate is not even remotely close to the level of rigorous coursework required at a 4 year accredited university for Atmospheric Science or Meteorology. At these accredited universities, meteorologists are required to take calculus, physics, atmospheric dynamics, thermodynamics, etc etc. Only after the completion of this program, they can call themselves a meteorologist.

This is the only loophole I can think of on the planet where you can call yourself the same professional name by taking an accelerated online course that does not have the same rigorous coursework as an accredited university. Can you think of any other examples?

It’s quite a shame, actually. I think there are 2 main problems here:

1) There is no enforcement of who can use the term “meteorologist’ and

2) The TV industry is dying for ratings…so they’ll put whoever looks good to attract attention…and that includes many non-meteorologists.

And the NWA (National Weather Association) actually gives a TV seal of approval to these folks…I think it’s wrong! Thankfully, the AMS (American Meteorological Society) has changed their rules to give their seal of approval only to folks who have taken more rigorous coursework. I think the NWA should do the same. Meteorologists are real scientists. We are putting scientists in the same league with folks who generally regurgitate the NWS forecasts, for the most part do not understand how to analyze weather models, and have a 3 year online certificate. It’s wrong, and this needs to change!

Weather affects people’s lives and is a serious business. We need to clearly separate by name who has a professional degree in meteorology and who doesn’t. There are some of you TV weather folks with a broadcast certificate that are actually great at communicating the weather…but it’s unfair to put a label on something that you are not.

So let’s talk about solutions….

Let’s define a meteorologist: A meteorologist is one who graduates from a 4 year accredited university that has completed all coursework in Atmospheric Science or Meteorology. Another way to define it could be a combination of pertinent meteorological education+experience. The AMS does a better job explaining this…so I’ll leave that in the hands of the experts.

Let’s define the Broadcast Meteorology Certificate: Anyone who completes the Mississippi State online broadcast meteorology course (or any other distance learning online meteorology course) should refer to themselves as a “Weathercaster” on-air. Give credit where credit is due. I think it would also be beneficial if Mississippi State stated in their program that their broadcast meteorology certificate is an online “weathercaster” program. If they want to become a meteorologist, they can complete the BS degree on their campus.

Let’s talk about Enforcement: My friends at the AMS need to write some rules, and enforce them. I’ve read that legally anyone can call themselves a meteorologist. If the AMS cannot legally enforce this..then how do we make meteorologist a “legal” definition like a “lawyer” or “doctor”? Someone please enlighten me. Why are we not taking our degree seriously?

Would you want your police officer to have had their training online…or would you rather they have proper training at the Police Academy. Maybe it’s not the best analogy…but meteorologists should be held to the same standard. Weather affects people’s lives and meteorologists can save and protect people too.

I’m not blaming all TV weathercasters…there are a good portion of you out there that do have a 4 year degree and you have the right to call yourself a meteorologist. I just think it makes sense to give credit where credit is due. Everyday viewers and the scientific community have a right to know who is a “meteorologist” and who is a “weathercaster”.

Bottom line, if we want meteorology to be taken seriously, we should take the term “meteorologist” seriously too.

Why Don't TV Meteorologists Believe in Climate Change?

By Katherine Bagley, InsideClimate News [1]

May 7, 2012

Climate scientists agree in vast majority that human-caused global warming is occurring. But most U.S. weather forecasters don't. Why?

By Katherine Bagley, InsideClimate News

In recent years, the world's scientists have begun to show that climate change is altering the magnitude and frequency of severe weather, and polls say [3] a majority of Americans now link droughts, floods and other extremes to global warming.

And yet, this country's TV weather forecasters have increasingly taken to denying evidence that warming is affecting weather—or is even happening at all. Only 19 percent accept the established science that human activity is driving climate change, says a 2011 report [4] by the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication [5], making TV meteorologists far more skeptical than the public at large [6].

That's a troubling statistic for some climate advocacy groups, which recently launched the "Forecast the Facts [7]" campaign. Those advocates worry that Americans hungry for information on global warming will seek answers from popular and enterprising TV forecasters who reject the climate science consensus—especially as social media use grows.

"Their denial has the potential to have a huge impact on their viewers," says Daniel Souweine, co-founder of the nonprofit Citizen Engagement Lab [8]and campaign director of Forecast the Facts.

Climate skeptic forecaster James Spann [9], for instance, a TV meteorologist in Birmingham, Ala., has almost 98,000 Facebook "likes" and 60,000 Twitter followers, more than any local TV talent in the nation, finds one report [10]. A recent tweet [11] has Spann attacking Bill Nye, the TV host and science educator, for connecting hurricanes to climate change. "Somebody needs to tell this stooge the difference between weather and climate."

"Local weathercasters are sort of rock stars ... and surveys show that the general public cares about what their weathercaster thinks of climate change," says Edward Maibach [12], director of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication and lead researcher on several surveys of meteorologists' global warming views.

But why TV meteorologists veer so far from the opinion of climate scientists is something researchers haven't yet polled. Experts interviewed for this story cite three main reasons for the disparity: their different levels of confidence in climate models, meteorologists' lack of education in global warming science and personal politics.

Distrust in Climate Models

About 97 percent of climate researchers believe that climate change is real and caused by humans, according to a recent report [13] from the National Academy of Sciences. Most working meteorologists fall into that camp, says Keith Seitter [14], the executive director of the American Meteorological Society [15] (AMS). TV forecasters make up a small fraction of meteorologists.

In 2007, the 14,000-member AMS released a statement [16] acknowledging the scientific consensus that human activity is causing the world's climate to warm. The AMS is the nation's largest meteorology membership organization.

Seitter says most U.S. meteorologists are researchers, such as state climatologists or those who work at NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), universities and nonprofit institutions. About 10 percent are TV weather reporters, he notes.

They are "unusually skeptical" and "pretty vocal ... [This] has caused some conflict within the AMS." Some members have dropped their membership because of the society's stance on global warming, Seitter says.

Experts say one answer to the broadcaster/scientist disparity lies in their different levels of confidence in computer models.

While the models TV meteorologists use to forecast weather use the same "physics" as those scientists use to predict long-term climate trends (for instance, the same calculations for how the atmosphere and biosphere interact), the data they plug into them is quite different, explains Keith Dixon[17], a research meteorologist at NOAA, who focuses on climate variability.

Just using different data produces scenarios with vastly different accuracies, he says.

TV meteorologists generally plug in very localized parameters like current wind speed and sea surface temperatures, which provide clues to rainfall and cloud formation in the immediate future, in a particular area.

Weather models are usually only accurate in predicting five- or seven-day forecasts—if that. A common belief of broadcasters is that climate models are just as fallible.

"The forecasters live in the real world. They know models in general, and they know these models don't even get tomorrow right," says Joseph D'Aleo [18], a well-known climate skeptic and the first director of meteorology at The Weather Channel. "They aren't going to trust them to be right about what is going to happen in 2100." Polls show that a vast majority of weathercasters, about 75 percent, distrust models of climate change.

But Dixon says that mistrust isn't warranted.

He explains that climate scientists crunch different data that plays a large role in determining long-term climate variability, such as the movement of heat within the oceans or the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface. "We're making projections about the overall climate," Dixon says, and that bigger-picture data is what makes long-term predictions so accurate. Plug in current wind speed into those models, he suggests, and the accuracy plummets.

"It's a bit disappointing that this confusion over the models still exists."

Seitter of AMS agrees there is a "disconnect" over the models and says it "can be easily fixed."

"Simply teaching [broadcast meteorologists] about the differences [between weather and climate] models, about how they are essentially the same, but used in different ways, can do a lot to clear up any skepticism."

State of Meteorology Education

Most research meteorologists have graduate degrees in meteorology or related fields like atmospheric sciences. About half of TV forecasters have bachelor degrees in meteorology, says Maibach of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. The other half is composed mainly of journalists who were assigned the weather beat.

Prominent broadcast meteorologists who are skeptical of climate science fall into both categories. For instance, John Coleman [19], co-founder of The Weather Channel and weatherman for KUSI-TV in San Diego—who has described global warming as "a fictional, manufactured crisis and a total scam"—has an undergraduate degree in journalism.

Others, including San Antonio meteorologist Bill Taylor [20] and Cleveland forecaster Mark Johnson [21], both vocal climate skeptics, started with undergraduate degrees in journalism or related fields like communications and later obtained meteorology certifications from Mississippi State University, a three-year distance learning program. Still others, like Brian Bledsoe [22] of KKTV in Colorado and Andre Bernier [23] of WJW in Cleveland, also both known skeptics, hold undergraduate degrees in meteorology.

But even if all TV forecasters had degrees in meteorology would it matter? "There are virtually no undergraduate meteorology programs in the country that have a significant climatology component," says Bud Ward, editor of the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media [24], part of a Yale climate initiative that has recently turned its attention to this issue.

"You can go through your whole degree without ever having taken a course on climate."

Even those programs considered top in the nation—such as Penn State and the University of Oklahoma—are only now adding global warming science to their curricula, though they have long taught the fundamentals of how the climate system works.

Bill Brune [25], an atmospheric chemist and head of Penn State's Department of Meteorology, says that students are exposed to concepts of climate science in two required classes—a survey course on atmospheric sciences and an upper-level undergraduate course called Radiation and Climate.

"In these and other courses, students are shown the changes in atmospheric composition and their impacts on atmospheric science and climate. The words 'climate change' ... do not necessarily appear on the course descriptions, but they are in the course syllabi or lectures."

Brune says changes are afoot. The course Climate Dynamics, currently an elective for meteorology students, was approved as a requirement starting next year. The class will cover climate change and its human influences, Brune notes.

Most undergraduate programs, including the University of Oklahoma, have added optional climate-related coursework during the past few years, a decision that some experts say could portend an increase in the number of forecasters who accept human-caused climate change.

D'Aleo, formerly of The Weather Channel and a former professor of meteorology at Lyndon State College of Vermont, says that introducing climate science into curricula will bias students against the belief that long-term climate change is driven by natural forces.

"When I was a professor years ago, we taught students how to think, not what to think," he says.

AMS and the National Weather Association [26] (NWA), the other major U.S. professional organization for meteorologists, offer optional broadcast meteorology certification programs. To obtain AMS certification, forecasters have to take courses on a range of topics from atmospheric physics to remote sensing, to pass a written exam and to have their on-air work and forecasts reviewed.

The AMS doesn't require climate science coursework to earn certification. Nor does the society test forecasters' global warming knowledge during the exam. "There is no discussion of changing the requirements to include [climate change]," says Seitter of AMS. The certification program is geared toward making sure broadcasters have adequate knowledge of forecasting, "since this is what these guys are getting paid to do."

Seitter notes that forecasters are encouraged to take global warming courses on their own.

To get NWA certification, TV meteorologists similarly have to pass a written exam and have their work critiqued by the society. Applicants are not tested on their climate change knowledge.

Souweine of Forecast the Facts believes the AMS and NWA programs need to change. "A certification for meteorologists that has no requirement for them to be able to speak intelligently and in an informed way about climate change seems like an empty certification," he says.

Souweine says the campaign plans to put pressure on both societies to require such coursework.

But whether or how a weathercaster chooses to discuss climate change may come down to something harder to influence, says Maibach: their personal politics and beliefs.

In recent years, climate change has become a partisan lighting rod, with the majority of Democrats, about two-thirds, believing that Earth's temperature is rising from human activity, with only one-third of Republicans agreeing with them, say polls.

No candidate who was vying for the GOP presidential nomination [27] admitted to the scientific consensus, even if they supported climate policy in the past.

Meteorologists are not immune, says Maibach. "Climate change has become so politically polarized that someone's party affiliation is now the dominant lens through which people come to look at the issue—even if they have scientific training."

Maibach says he believes that personal politics are so central to views on climate change that he is considering asking TV meteorologists to state their party affiliations in upcoming surveys.

Audience Expectations

Weathercasters are often the only people at their stations with scientific backgrounds. As a result, they often engage in on-air chit-chat with news anchors on science issues, including global warming. They also write articles for the station's website and are frequently invited to give guest lectures at schools and various community organizations.

For many Americans, their TV weatherperson is the only climate-related authority they encounter each day.

"Most Americans are never going to know who the world's major climate scientists are, but they know who their weatherperson is," Souweine says. According to a survey by Maibach and colleagues, more than three-quarters of TV meteorologists say they have discussed the topic of global warming either on or off air.

The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication has hosted workshops across the country that connect TV weathercasters with climate scientists. During the day-long event, climate scientists discuss the link between climate change and weather, address the latest science and help meteorologists understand how global warming will affect their regions. "We go into this realistically," says Ward, the editor of the forum and workshop organizer. "We know we are not always going to change people's opinions, so that is not our goal. We just want to provide them with accurate information and give them avenues to ask questions."

But some, like D'Aleo, who is no longer on the air but runs a website called ICECAP [28], which promotes views of climate skeptics, say global warming should be off limits to forecasters.

"It is not our role," he says. "And in fact, many station managers have told forecasters not to do it, because if you take one side or another it will alienate a percentage of your audience and you might lose them." In 2010, D'Aleo did an [29] with Coleman in San Diego, in which he accuses climate scientists of manipulating temperature data on global warming.

Souweine of Forecast the Facts says that silence isn't an option. "Viewers do care about this ... They feel it is the job of the news to tell them what is going on, and [climate change] is the biggest weather story of the 21st century.

"When they don't mention climate change while reporting on another set of record high temperatures or unprecedented severe weather," Souweine continues, "it is like a news reporter talking about a string of murders and not mentioning there is a suspect in custody."

InsideClimate News intern Kathryn Doyle contributed reporting to this story.

Comment space is provided for respectful discourse. Please consult our comment policies [36] for more information. We welcome your participation in civil and constructive discussions.

Bill Taylor grew up in northern New Jersey and first moved south when he was 19. For most of his life, he thought "down south" was Virginia. Then, he found out about southwest Louisiana and the Cajun life. Between crawfish boils and Mardi Gras, he squeezed in a degree in journalism from McNeese State University in Lake Charles.Bill began his television career there, too, at NBC affiliate KPLC. Upon landing the weekend weather chair, he enrolled in the meteorology program at Mississippi State University. Then, it was on to Dixie and the state of Alabama. Following a four-year study of the skies over Montgomery, where he worked for WSFA-TV, he applied for a weekend weather position at KENS 5. "I've been privileged to serve the viewers of South Texas since 1996. The most important thing I do is keep people ahead of severe, life-threatening weather situations. But that's only at 5400 Fredericksburg. THE MOST important thing I do is serve three little girls as a dad," says Bill. "Carissa is 10, Kendall is 7 and Peyton is 3. I enjoy EVERY SECOND I'm blessed to spend with them. And, when we can, my beautiful wife Jamie and I really enjoy a round of golf and a good wine."

Education: Meteorology Certification from Mississippi State University in 1993 and a Bachelors Degree in Telecommunications from Kent State University in 1988.

Current Position/Job Duties: Chief Meteorologist since 2003. Mark’s high-energy style on Live on Five and NewsChannel5 at 6 and 11 p.m. keeps viewers informed and prepared for the coming weather. He can also be seen weekly giving out gardening and landscape advice with Angelo Petitti on "Mark's Garden."

His forecasts can be heard daily on radio station WREO Star97.1 on the east side, WDJQ Q-92FM in the Canton/Akron area, and on WNCX and WDOK FM in Cleveland.

Work Experience: As lifelong resident of Northeast Ohio's "snowbelt," Mark knows lake effect snow forecasting inside and out. His specialties also include severe weather prediction and severe storm tracking.

Joined NewsChannel5: November 1993.

Awards/Honors: Mark is an award-winning meteorologist, having received coveted Emmy Awards for his weather forecasting.He was the first Cleveland forecaster with both the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the National Weather Association (NWA) Seals of Approval. He has also gone on to achieve the Certified Broadcast Meteorologist (CBM) seal from the AMS.

Mark was voted by Cleveland Magazine as one of this area's 50 Most Interesting People in 1997 and 1998.

Hobbies & Interests: Fishing, hiking and tennis.

Links:

[1] http://insideclimatenews.org/author/katherine-bagley

[2] http://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/2mark johnson_0.jpg

[3] http://www.insideclimatenews.org/breaking-news/20120418/most-americans-link-extreme-weather-climate-change

[4] http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/images/files/2011_Mason_AMS_NWA_Weathercaster_Survey_Report_NA_doc_pdf%281%29.pdf

[5] http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/index.cfm

[6] http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/images/files/PoliticsGlobalWarming2011.pdf

[7] http://forecastthefacts.org/

[8] http://engagementlab.org/

[9] http://jamesspann.com/js/

[10] http://www.lostremote.com/2011/04/15/popular-tv-meteorologist-in-eye-of-social-media-tornado/

[11] http://twitter.com/#%21/spann/statuses/108683787206012928

[12] http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/edward_maibach.cfm

[13] http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.full

[14] http://www.ametsoc.org/amsnews/bios/seitter.html

[15] http://www.ametsoc.org/

[16] http://ametsoc.org/policy/2007climatechange.html

[17] http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/keith-dixon-homepage

[18] http://icecap.us/index.php/go/experts

[19] http://www.kusi.com/story/12963605/john-coleman?clienttype=printable

[20] http://www.kens5.com/on-tv/bios/68670807.html

[21] http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/about_us/staff/Chief-Meteorologist-Mark-Johnson-biography

[22] http://www.kktv.com/station/bios/weather/2080991.html

[23] http://andrebernier.com/?page_id=2

[24] http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/

[25] http://ploneprod.met.psu.edu/people/whb2

[26] http://www.nwas.org/

[27] http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120221/republicans-santorum-romney-gingrich-climate-scientists-scientific-consensus-skeptics-kerry-emanuel?page=show

[28] http://www.icecap.us/

[29] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33JG3mX7KkQ

[30] http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120221/republicans-santorum-romney-gingrich-climate-scientists-scientific-consensus-skeptics-kerry-emanuel

[31] http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120314/heartland-institute-climate-change-skepticism-science-education-experts-david-wojick-ipcc-kyoto-protocol

[32] http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120313/climate-science-legal-defense-fund-skeptics-global-warming-michael-mann-hockey-stick-university-of-virginia

[33] http://insideclimatenews.org/special-focus-topics/climate-deniers

[34] http://insideclimatenews.org/reuters-topics/green-energy

[35] http://insideclimatenews.org/topics/climate-science

[36] http://insideclimatenews.org/about/comment-policies

[37] http://insideclimatenews.disqus.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Finsideclimatenews.org%2Fnews%2F20120507%2Ftelevision-meteorologists-climate-change-skeptics-weather-global-warming-john-coleman-james-span-joseph-daleo

http://www.onearth.org/print/2172

His Forecast Is Very Clear

By Lynne Peeple

May 27, 2010

Meteorologists are the closest thing to a science reporter that you’ll find at most TV stations. In Alabama, one weatherman has made climate education his mission.

In his slight southern drawl, Dan Satterfield broke the news during WHNT's five o'clock broadcast that temperatures were on the rise. "The confidence is very high," he added, standing in front of his green screen, motioning to a map visible only to his television audience. "You can bet the farm on this one."

A pair of news anchors chuckled from across the studio. Their station's popular meteorologist was predicting a pleasant "10-degree jump" for Huntsville, Alabama, during the first week of April, and they know that he doesn't shy from using similar language on-air to describe longer-term global warming trends.

At age 50, Satterfield recognizes that many in his audience are "climatically challenged," and his profession has the power to help those afflicted by science illiteracy. Only about 7 percent of all TV meteorologists work at stations with a designated science reporter, according to Kris Wilson of the University of Texas at Austin, who recently conducted a national survey of weathercasters. "People learn to trust weathercasters and like them, so whatever they say about things like climate change carries tremendous weight," Wilson says. "By choice or by default, weathercasters end up being the science experts."

However, a four-year undergraduate degree in meteorology, which not all weathercasters even hold, doesn't necessarily make one an expert on the complex workings of the earth's climate. "Weather and climate are two very different things," Satterfield says as he settles into his chilly studio office to recharge for the six o'clock show. Between newscasts, he sheds his suit jacket in favor of a black fleece vest emblazoned with a purple Antarctica pin.

From the beginning of his career in 1980, Satterfield focused solely on what his bachelor's degree in meteorology had trained him to do: tell people what to wear that day. And until the mid-1990s, he remained unconvinced that scientists could predict what the climate would be like in 50 years, given that he struggled to forecast beyond five days. (More than a quarter of the weathercasters Wilson surveyed believe that global warming is "a scam.") But repeated exposure to the "overwhelming evidence" of climate change, notes Satterfield, made him finally say, "Whoa, I need to start looking into this."

Satterfield bought some statistics textbooks and taught himself enough about standard scientific methods to read critically the peer-reviewed journals. He even went back to school for a master's degree in earth science. Then, for two weeks in 2007, Satterfield witnessed climate science in the making -- from the decks of a Russian icebreaker in the Arctic.

Upon his return to the newsroom, he began sharing what he had learned, fully anticipating a backlash from his conservative audience. Yet aside from a handful of complaints, the show's ratings and viewer questions suggested that people were listening. "Satterfield has a backbone," says Bud Ward, editor of the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media. "He makes other meteorologists think, 'If he can do it in Huntsville, I can do it in Cleveland.' "

In addition to presenting longer specials, he frequently fits into his three-minute weather segments "something short but powerful that dispels a climate myth," he says. Following last winter's blizzard that buried Washington, D.C., and the subsequent buzz among climate skeptics, he showed viewers a world map depicting January's temperature anomalies. It was dominated by red dots -- above-average temperatures -- with only a few blue dots, including the one on Washington.

While people in the nation's capital complained about a record cold spell, Satterfield set out for even colder parts -- Antarctica -- on a National Science Foundation media expedition to report on state-of-the-art climate research. A picture on his office wall shows him standing at the South Pole, bundled from head-to-toe. The visible part of his face bears a wide grin. "I love the cold," he says. Then he sheds his fleece vest and suits up for the next broadcast.

article, "Opportunities and Obstacles for Television Weathercasters to Report on Climate Change" appears in the October 2009 issue of BAMS and serves as the foundation for a new NSF grant that continues to examine the potentially prominent role that TV weathercasters play as science communicators in US society.

book Environmental Risks and the Media.

drkris@mail.utexas.edu

http://journalism.utexas.edu/faculty/kris-wilson

It's been a busy year for TV weathercasters: July was the hottest month ever recorded in the United States, unprecedented wildfires scorched the West, the worst drought in 50 years parched two-thirds of the county. Then, in October, Hurricane Sandy slammed into New York and New Jersey. Yet the cause of much of the meteorological mayhem – global warming – was rarely mentioned on air. The reason: There's a shockingly high chance that your friendly TV weatherman is a full-blown climate denier.

Take David Bernard, the handsome young chief meteorologist at the CBS affiliate in Miami. In a rapidly warming world, Miami is at huge risk from rising seas and increasingly intense storms like Sandy. But rather than alerting viewers to the connection between extreme weather and the rising concentration of climate-warming pollution in the atmosphere, Bernard spent his time last summer posting 131 pictures of Dolly, his Boston terrier puppy, on his Facebook page. In Bernard's view, climate change is nothing but a plot perpetuated by crazy liberals intent on bringing about, as he put it in one tweet, "global wealth redistribution." In June, during a month when more than 700 heat records were broken across the country, Bernard tweeted that the Earth is "cooling" and defended the Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank that has compared those who believe in global warming to mass murderers. As for Hurricane Sandy, which climate scientists believe was spiked by rising sea surface temperatures, it was just part of a natural cycle: "We have seen storms like this over and over again," Bernard said.

Bernard is not only a top weathercaster in a major media market – he's also a rising network star. A few years ago, he scored a national gig with CBS as a severe weather consultant, commenting on everything from hurricanes and tornados to heat waves and drought. "It's like CBS deciding to cover a public health crisis by relying on a doctor who doesn't believe in germs," says Daniel Souweine of Forecast the Facts, a group that tracks TV weathercasters.

Rolling Stone

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/forecasting-denial-why-are-tv-weathercasters-ignoring-climate-change-20121205?print=true

Forecasting Denial: Why Are TV Weathercasters Ignoring Climate Change?

You definitely don't need these weathermen to know which way the wind blows

by: Jeff Goodell

And Bernard is far from alone: A recent study found that more than a quarter of TV meteorologists call global warming a "scam,"while less than a third believe that climate change is caused by human activity. In fact, some of America's most outspoken climate crackpots are TV weather guys. John Coleman, a co-founder of The Weather Channel who now tracks storms for KUSI-TV in San Diego, has called global warming "a fictional, manufactured crisis," and aruged that "stamping out the global warming scam is vital to saving our wonderful way of life." Anthony Watts, a former weathercaster in Chico, California, runs a leading climate disinformation site called "What's Up With That?" And Joe Bastardi, the chief forecaster for the meteorological service Weatherbell, routinely misrepresents climate data during his appearances on Fox News.

If you've ever wondered why many Americans are so ill-informed about the risks of climate change, here's your answer. "For most Americans, TV weathercasters are as close as they are going to get to real scientists," says Heidi Cullen, the former on-air climate expert at The Weather Channel who is now chief scientist at the website Climate Central. "They are ideally positioned to help people understand that global warming is not a far-off, distant thing – that is happening all around them, right now, and it is affecting their lives." But by failing to inform viewers about the realities of climate change, TV weathercasters neglect their scientific responsibility on a nightly basis.

Weathercasters argue that it's tough to cram complex climate science into a three-minute broadcast. But enlightened weathercasters, such as Jim Gandy at WLTX in Columbia, South Carolina – hardly a hotbed of environmentalism – manage to do it very well. Gandy pioneered short segments called "Climate Matters," which are two or three minute segments that focus on the science behind issues like heat waves and explains to viewers why global warming is likely to lead to, say, more poison ivy in their backyards. "If you do it right, you can build an audience for this," Gandy says. "Climate science doesn't have to be alienating or scary to audiences."

The biggest problem is that most weathercasters are not scientists at all – they just play one on TV. Only half of on-air weathercasters have advanced credentials – often in "broadcast meteorology," a dumbed-down, made-for-TV version of the degree. The rest, like The Today Show's Al Roker, are just TV stars with colorful personalities. And thanks to increasingly sophisticated forecasting technology, you don't need to know much about cloud dynamics to get the job done. "I've never known a meteorologist to get promoted for his or her forecasting skill," says a former network news producer who asked not to be identified.

Nor do weathercasters need to know much about how greenhouse gases are altering the atmosphere to get a coveted stamp of approval from the American Meteorological Society, the gold standard for weathercasters. "There is no requirement for the AMS certification to know anything about climate science," says Jeff Masters, the co-founder and chief meteorologist at Weather Underground, an Internet weather site that is known for its aggressive coverage of climate change. In fact, the AMS itself has been slow to embrace the latest science on global warming. In public statements, the society has long played up uncertainties and natural causes for the earth's warming. Only last August did the AMS finally admit that warming is "unequivocal" and that human beings are "the dominant cause."

Another problem is corporate politics. "Most local TV stations are owned by large corporations like Gannett or Scripps," says Terry Kelly, a former weathercaster and CEO of the forecasting company Weather Central. "Many of these owners have a conservative political bent, and tend to be climate skeptics." At some, like Fox News, the influence is explicit. Others, like the Weather Channel – which is co-owned by Mitt Romney's old firm, Bain Capital – avoided dealing with the issue by simply shutting down its entire climate unit in 2008. "The influence is rarely direct," says a weathercaster who works for a Scripps-owned station. "But it's just clear that if you want to say or do something about climate change, you need to be very careful, because you are likely to hear about it from upstairs."

Smaller, privately-held stations can be even worse. Stan Hubbard,whose Hubbard Broadcasting owns 12 stations nationwide, calls global warming "the biggest fraud in the history of America." His job, Hubbard says, is to make sure that "both sides of the argument have equal opportunity to be heard" – meaning that even widely debunked climate deniers get plenty of air time on his stations. Not surprisingly, the chief meteorologist at Hubbard's flagship station in Minneapolis, Dave Dahl, echoes his boss's views, suggesting that global warming is a "political theory" pushed by grant-hungry scientists.

It's not always a matter of ideology, though. Many broadcasters are simply afraid that any talk of global warming will dampen ratings and scare off advertisers. "Talking about climate change is kryptonite for TV meteorologists," says Paul Douglas, a veteran TV weathercaster and reformed climate skeptic who is now the chief meteorologist at Alerts Broadcaster, which specializes in severe weather alerting services. "They tend to abhor anything that might turn viewers off and make it harder for them to renegotiate a big, fat, six-figure salary. By even bringing up the topic, you know you're going to alienate the percentage of the audience who still link global warming with Al Gore and conspiracy theories. Why run into the buzz saw of denial? It's easier to stick to safe topics, like dew point and hot weather survival tips."

In the long run, of course, avoiding the reality of global warming is a losing strategy – both for TV weathercasters and their millions of loyal viewers. "The simple fact is, the climate is going to get warmer and warmer as we put more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere," says Jeff Masters of Weather Underground. "As that happens, the weather is going to get more extreme. People who talk plainly and credibly about climate change are going to be more successful and draw bigger audiences. Weathercasting is not an industry that can bet its future on denial."

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-07-01-todays-weather-forecast-high-pressure-areas-climate-skepticism/

Cover Story — January / February 2010

Hot Air

Why don’t TV weathermen believe in climate change?

By Charles Homans

The small makeup room off the main floor of KUSI’s studios, in a suburban canyon on the north end of San Diego, has seen better days. The carpet is stained; the couch sags. John Coleman, KUSI’s weatherman, pulls off the brown sweatshirt he has been wearing over his shirt and tie all day and appraises himself in the mirror, smoothing back his white hair and opening a makeup kit. “I kid that I have to use a trowel, to fill the crevasses of age,” he says, swiping powder under one eye and then the other. “People have tried to convince me to use more advanced makeup, but I don’t. I don’t try to fool anyone.”

Coleman is seventy-five years old, and looks it, which is refreshing in the Dorian Gray-like environs of television news. He refers to his position at KUSI, a modestly eccentric independent station in San Diego whose evening newscast usually runs fifth out of five in the local market, as his retirement job. When he steps in front of the green screen, it’s clear why he has chosen it over actual retirement; in front of the camera he moves, if not quite like a man half his age, then at least like a man three quarters of it. His eyes light up, and the slight stoop with which he otherwise carries himself disappears. His rumble of a voice evens out into a theatrical baritone, full of the practiced jocularity of someone who has spent all but the first nineteen years of his life on TV.

By his own rough estimate, John Coleman has performed more than a quarter million weathercasts. It is not a stretch to say that he is largely responsible for the shape of the modern weather report. As the first weatherman on...

Kris Wilson, an Emory University journalism lecturer and a former TV news director and weatherman himself…surveyed a group of TV meteorologists, asking them to respond to Coleman’s claim [link] that global warming was a scam. The responses stunned him. Twenty-nine percent of the 121 meteorologists who replied agreed with Coleman—not that global warming was unproven, or unlikely, but that it was a scam.* Just 24 percent of them believed that humans were responsible for most of the change in climate over the past half century—half were sure this wasn’t true, and another quarter were “neutral” on the issue. “I think it scares and disturbs a lot of people in the science community,” Wilson told me recently. This was the most important scientific question of the twenty-first century thus far, and a matter on which more than eight out of ten climate researchers were thoroughly convinced. And three quarters of the TV meteorologists Wilson surveyed believe the climatologists were wrong. [....]

More striking is the fact that the weathercasters became outspoken in their rejection of climate science right around the time the rest of the media began to abandon the on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand approach that had dominated their coverage of the issue for years, and started to acknowledge that the preponderance of evidence lay with those who believed climate change was both real and man-made. If anything, that shift radicalized the weathermen. “I think the media is almost sleeping with the enemy,” one meteorologist told me. “The way it is now, there is just such a bias as to what gets out.”

Free-market think tanks like the Heartland Institute, knowing an opportunity when they see one, now woo weathercasters with invitations to skeptics’ conferences.The National Science Foundation and the Congress-funded National Environmental Education Foundation, meanwhile, are pouring money into efforts to figure out where exactly the climate scientists lost the meteorologists, and how to win them back. The American Meteorological Society (AMS)—which formally endorsed the scientific consensus on climate change years ago, but counts many of the skeptics among its members, to its chagrin—has started including climate-change workshops for weathercasters in its conferences.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/science/earth/30warming.html?pagewanted=print

Among Weathercasters, Doubt on Warming

By LESLIE KAUFMANPublished: March 29, 2010

The debate over global warming has created predictable adversaries, pitting environmentalists against industry and coal-state Democrats against coastal liberals

But it has also created tensions between two groups that might be expected to agree on the issue: climate scientists and meteorologists, especially those who serve as television weather forecasters.

Climatologists, who study weather patterns over time, almost universally endorse the view that the earth is warming and that humans have contributed to climate change. There is less of a consensus among meteorologists, who predict short-term weather patterns.

Joe Bastardi, for example, a senior forecaster and meteorologist with AccuWeather, maintains that it is more likely that the planet is cooling, and he distrusts the data put forward by climate scientists as evidence for rising global temperatures.

“There is a great deal of consternation among a lot of us over the readjustment of data that is going on and some of the portrayals that we are seeing,” Mr. Bastardi said in a video segment posted recently on AccuWeather’s Web site.

Such skepticism appears to be widespread among TV forecasters, about half of whom have a degree in meteorology. A study

http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/images/files/TV_Meteorologists_Survey_Findings_%28March_2010%29.pdf

released on Monday by researchers at George Mason University and the University of Texas at Austin found that only about half of the 571 television weathercasters surveyed believed that global warming was occurring and fewer than a third believed that climate change was “caused mostly by human activities.”

More than a quarter of the weathercasters in the survey agreed with the statement “Global warming is a scam,” the researchers found.

The split between climate scientists and meteorologists is gaining attention in political and academic circles because polls show that public skepticism about global warming is increasing, and weather forecasters — especially those on television — dominate communications channels to the public. A study released this year by researchers at Yale and George Mason found that 56 percent of Americans trusted weathercasters to tell them about global warming far more than they trusted other news media or public figures like former Vice President Al Gore or Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate.

The George Mason-Texas survey found that about half of the weathercasters said they had discussed global warming on their broadcasts during chats with anchors, and nearly 90 percent said they had talked about climate change at live appearances at Kiwanis Club-type events.

Several well-known forecasters — including John Coleman in San Diego and Anthony Watts, a retired Chico, Calif., weatherman who now has a popular blog — have been vociferous in their critiques of global warming.

The dissent has been heightened by recent challenges to climate science, including the discovery of errors in the 2007 report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the unauthorized release of e-mail messages from a British climate research center last fall that skeptics say show that climate scientists had tried to suppress data.

“In a sense the question is who owns the atmosphere: the people who predict it every day or the people who predict it for the next 50 years?” said Bob Henson, a science writer for the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, who trained as a meteorologist and has followed the divide between the two groups.

Mr. Henson added, “And the level of tension has really spiked in recent months.”

The reasons behind the divergence in views are complex. The American Meteorological Society, which confers its coveted seal of approval on qualified weather forecasters, has affirmed the conclusion of the United Nations’ climate panel that warming is occurring and that human activities are very likely the cause. In a statement sent to Congress in 2009, the meteorological society warned that the buildup of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would lead to “major negative consequences.”

Yet, climate scientists use very different scientific methods from the meteorologists. Heidi Cullen, a climatologist who straddled the two worlds when she worked at the Weather Channel, noted that meteorologists used models that were intensely sensitive to small changes in the atmosphere but had little accuracy more than seven days out. Dr. Cullen said meteorologists are often dubious about the work of climate scientists, who use complex models to estimate the effects of climate trends decades in the future.

But the cynicism, said Dr. Cullen, who now works for Climate Central, a nonprofit group that works to bring the science of climate change to the public, is in her opinion unwarranted.

“They are not trying to predict the weather for 2050, just generally say that it will be hotter,” Dr. Cullen said of climatologists. “And just like I can predict August will be warmer than January, I can predict that.”

Three years ago, Dr. Cullen found herself in a dispute with meteorologists after she posted a note on the Weather Channel’s Web site suggesting that meteorologists should perhaps not receive certification from the meteorological society if they “can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change.”

Resentment may also play a role in the divide. Climatologists are almost always affiliated with universities or research institutions where a doctoral degree is required. Most meteorologists, however, can get jobs as weather forecasters with a college degree.

“There is a little bit of elitist-versus-populist tensions,” Mr. Henson said. “There are meteorologists who feel, ‘Just because I have a bachelor’s degree doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on.’ ”

Whatever the reasons, meteorologists are far more likely to question the underlying science of climate change. A study published in the January 2009 newsletter of the American Geophysical Union, the professional association of earth scientists, found that while nearly 90 percent of some 3,000 climatologists who responded agreed that there was evidence of human-driven climate change, 80 percent of all earth scientists and 64 percent of meteorologists agreed with the statement. Only economic geologists who specialized in industrial uses of materials like oil and coal were more skeptical.

Seeing danger in the divide between climate scientists and meteorologists, a variety of groups concerned with educating the public on climate change — including the National Environmental Education Foundation, a federally financed nonprofit, and Yale — are working to close the gap with research and educational forums. In 2008, Yale began holding seminars with weathercasters who are unsure about the climate issue and scientists who are leading experts in the field. The Columbia Journalism Review explored the reasons for the split in an article this year.

Conversely, the Heartland Institute, a free-market research organization skeptical about the causes and severity of climate change, is also making efforts to reach out. At its annual conference to be held in May in Chicago, the institute tried without success to put on a special session for the weather predictors.

“What we’ve recognized is that the everyday person doesn’t come across climatologists, but they do come across meteorologists,” said Melanie Fitzpatrick, a climate scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Meteorologists do need to understand more about climate because the public confuses this so much. That is why you see efforts in this turning up.”