Listening for the weather
Wouldn’t it be great if the nightly TV weather report discussed weather events with reference to global warming and climate change, and reported on human impacts on the weather? It would be a change from the three minutes of cushy feel-good reporting and inane banter with the newsreaders, imagine if the weather report was meaningful, informative, interesting and related to the very real issues and risks associated with the climate?
Well, as this interesting article on Salon.com illustrates, many meteorologists would love to include this kind of information in weather bulletins, but are facing very stiff opposition from networks. Mixing “news” up with “weather” doesn’t rate apparently - never mind that it’s an inherently false dichotomy to keep them separate.
Here are a couple of sample paragraphs from the article, but I recommend reading it in full:
Most Americans get their information about the weather and climate from TV meteorologists, who in turn provide forecasts to local newspapers. So the weather report would be a fitting, if not exclusive, place to inform the global warming discussion. The long-term implications are also intriguing. Historically, weather forecasters have been segregated from issues of policy and human behavior, which are considered the rightful province of the news reporting staff. Global warming, however, may be the trigger that finally brings the weatherman in from the cold.
But rescripting the classic weather forecast is no easy task. As media critic Neil Postman has pointed out, the happy-go-lucky weather report has always contained the seeds of a conservative agenda. Consider air quality alerts, which show up in the weather (not news) report as natural adjuncts to rain or shine, purely meteorological events devoid of social consequence or responsibility. Driven by ratings, station heads are reluctant to deviate from the standard three-minute forecast, much less air content that might alienate the broadest possible audience, and cause them to change the channel.
This interview with The Weather Channel’s climate change expert Heidi Cullen is also interesting.
April 5th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
Sorry but you can’t have it both ways. One of the things the critics of AGW have been saying for years is that we can’t predict the weather accurately a week out so haw can we trust GCMs looking 10, 20, 50 years out, while proponents of AGW keep saying is that weather is not climate and so the comparisons with day to day weather are not valid and that individual meterological events cannot be pinned on global warming. Don’t tell me you are asking for those positions to be reversed. Next thing you know we will be heading into another little ice age rather than a post modern warming.
One of the strangest phenomena of global warming is how metoerologists and weather analysts have turned into climatologists. Can anyone explain that?
April 5th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
> One of the strangest phenomena of global warming is how metoerologists and weather analysts have turned into climatologists. Can anyone explain that?
Perhaps because meteorologists learn about global circulation and energy budgets as part of their basic training, and also follow developments in climate studies with a scientific eye? We’re not climatologists, but as that Salon article says:
… most forecasters have degrees in meteorology or a related science. … they are well positioned to report on global warming, if not explain all the complexities of climate science. “It’s not like there’s a Grand Canyon separating meteorologists and climatologists,” says Anthony Socci, a senior policy fellow at the American Meteorological Society in Boston. “We share the same skill set.”
It would be difficult, though, and perhaps counterproductive, for weather presenters to try to link specific weather events to climate change. It’s nonsense to say that a particular storm was “caused” by climate change, but it may be possible to say something like “according to climatologists, this is exactly the sort of event we’ll have to expect more of, unless we do something about our effects on the planet”. They may be able to counter all those idiots who say “there was hail in the city yesterday - ha, take that, global warming advocates!” by emphasising that climate change isn’t about everything getting nice and toasty.
I’m more likely to be irritated by traffic reports and newsreaders talking about petrol price rises as if we have no alternative. Even on NatRad, someone once said of petrol prices “Hmm, perhaps we’ll have to think about taking the hatchback rather than the SUV to the dairy”. Or perhaps even WALKING, god forbid!! Perhaps every time someone mentions a traffic jam, they could contextualise it by mentioning the other effects of the increase in car use.
April 5th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
is the weather forecast on the 6 oclock news really only 3 minutes long? it seems to last for an eternity. it doesn’t need to be that slow moving, it could easily pack in more detailed forcasting in less time, leaving room for a round up of interesting weather around the world, tropical storms in queensland, devestating flooding in Peru, etc etc.
April 5th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
the happy-go-lucky weather report has always contained the seeds of a conservative agenda
Reporting of “facts” without analysis, whether it’s the news or the weather, is indeed an inherently conservative, even reactionary, influence on the consumer. Here are the events, don’t try to understand, just deal with it, and leave the complicated stuff to your wise rulers. Fill your mind up with burglaries and rapes, mistrust your fellow citizens, divide and rule.
On the other hand, putting a “conventional wisdom” gloss on everything has its perils. I would expect 90% of weather forecasters to be on board with the scientific concensus on global warming; but if they start sounding off on it, the average punter may feel he’s under assault from Political Correctness.
April 6th, 2006 at 11:03 am
Imagine if our news was meaningful, informative, and related to the very real issues ! :):)
April 6th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
So how would a weather forecaster spin the fact March was the coldest since 1993 and say it’s due to global warming?
Sounds like we all need to jump into our SUVs and go for a drive.
April 6th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
From scoop.co.nz.
Weather report is under science!
Science
Wet And Windy Weather Coming
3:36 pm | MetService
Forest research and climate change
2:56 pm | ensis
April 6th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Mark:
As I understand it, Global Warming leads to more ENERGY in the weather systems on the planet … more extremes, not necessarily always warmer.
In March, we in Canterbury have had different weather than I have previously experienced at this time of year in the approximately six decades I have lived here.
Hopefully one of the weather experts who visit this blog from time to time will answer your question!
April 7th, 2006 at 4:41 am
Many weather presenters in the states are selected for appearance, not abilities.
I don’t see any great advantage in having the weather report turned into a comment on climate.
The weather may get more INTERESTING to us, but “faux” news will never permit it, and its target audience of unwashed rednecks would find yet another reason not to bother watching any other source of infotainment. They’ll just find a former playmate or cheerleader to do the presenting and let the other networks howl.
I know several guys in LA who always made sure to be watching when Barbierie was presenting the weather EVERY morning. Her audience was not however, particularly interested in the weather.
No advantage to doing it IMHO. Let it stay JUST about weather.
respectfully
BJ