[Vision2020] Why are most meteorologists climate change skeptics?

Thu Feb 23 21:27:16 PST 2012

I assumed people were capable of clicking on the link.  It always bugs 
me when people copy the whole article with just a quick one-liner at the 
top; it's convenient but it's also technically a copyright violation.  
It's also unnecessary because you can click on the link and look at it 
yourself.

Did you know that meteorological reporting is only a subset of 
meteorologists?  It's not just the guy or gal on TV with the perfect 
hair delivering those sound bites that can be classified as 
meteorologists.  It's also the people that forecast the weather 
(including hurricanes and tornadoes, droughts, floods, etc.), do 
research in atmospheric physics or atmospheric chemistry, and that 
gather and analyze much of the data used by climate scientists as well 
as studying how the atmosphere interacts with the ocean and how 
different feedbacks operate.

It's easy to denigrate those who have a difference in opinion.  That is, 
essentially, what this article is trying to do.  John Coleman, for 
example, has fifty years of experience forecasting weather on a daily 
basis.  He was also a professional member of the American Meteorological 
Society.  He may not be a climate scientist, but he's more than just a 
simple journalist.  While it's convenient to think of him as an 
uneducated schlub, I suspect he picked up some knowledge during his 
fifty year weather forecasting career.  Enough that we shouldn't just 
blatantly sweep whatever he says under the rug.

I just wish the author of the article had had the balls to just report 
on this as an interesting phenomenon.  Instead, he felt obliged to toe 
the party line and use his article to belittle all those who follow a 
particular career path.  I mean, how could they be right?  They are 
contradicting *scientists*, man!  Don't get me started on how 
unscientific argument from authority is.

Paul

On 02/23/2012 07:39 PM, Ron Force wrote:
> Well, you could have quoted this from the article:
>  As the only professional who speaks about science in an atmosphere of 
> 30-second sound bites, weather forecasters are often asked to gauge an 
> opinion on anything that may touch upon a scientific topic, although 
> they may have scant knowledge of the field. These inquiries may give 
> them the impression they are more omniscient in their science 
> knowledge than they really are. "There is one little problem with 
> this: most weather forecasters are not really scientists. When a broad 
> pool of weather forecasters were surveyed in a study barely half of 
> them had a college degree in meteorology or another atmospheric 
> science. Only 17 percent had received a graduate degree, effectively a 
> prerequisite for an academic researcher in any scientific field 
> <http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/hot_air.php?page=all>."
>
>     "Among the certified meteorologists surveyed in 2008, 79 percent
>     considered it appropriate to educate their communities about
>     climate change. Few of them, however, had taken the steps
>     necessary to fully educate themselves about it. When asked which
>     source of information on climate change they most trusted, 22
>     percent named the American Meteorological Society (AMS). But the
>     next most popular answer, with 16 percent, was "no one." The third
>     was "myself <http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/hot_air.php?page=all>.""
>
>     One of the leading weatherman deniers is John Coleman, founder of
>     the Weather Channel. He has an undergraduate degree in ...journalism.
>
>
> Ron Force
> Moscow Idaho USA
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com>
> *To:* Vision 2020 <Vision2020 at moscow.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, February 23, 2012 5:59 PM
> *Subject:* [Vision2020] Why are most meteorologists climate change 
> skeptics?
>
>
> Here is a link to an article in the Huffington Post that asks the 
> question "Why do Meteorologists Dismiss Climate Change Science?":
>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marvin-meadors/why-do-meteorologists-dis_b_1289630.html
>
> I was hoping this article would look into this fact from a standpoint 
> of "what factors might be involved that cause so many meteorologists 
> to question the anthropogenic global warming theory?"  What could 
> cause this skepticism?  I had then assumed that they would go through 
> those reasons and explain why they might be confused from an "AGW 
> theory is right by divine providence" viewpoint.  It was too much to 
> hope that they would simply raise the issues as open questions and let 
> people think for themselves.
>
> That's why I was surprised that they didn't even do that.  They 
> basically took the stance that not only is AGW correct, but climate 
> scientists are infallible and your basic weatherman is an uneducated 
> lout.  It was told from a slightly contemptuous "look at those crazy 
> people!" angle.  They barely even referred to "climate is not 
> weather".  They mumbled something about how those cretins question 
> climate models merely because the ones that are used in meteorology 
> are laughingly inaccurate.  But the climate models made by Real 
> Climate Scientists predicted Mt. Pinatubo!  *rolls eyes*
>
> So what might make 76% of meteorologists as a group skeptical that 
> man's influence is the primary cause of global warming and a whopping 
> 29% think it's a scam?  Here are a few reasons to think about.
>
> The first is the one that they ran with.  Climate scientists have 
> doctorates in related fields and many meteorologists you see on TV 
> don't.  Read the article for more info on this.  I would like to point 
> out that while they don't have doctorates in Climatology or a related 
> field, they do know your local weather and how that is affected by 
> global conditions that are relevant well.  They are a step beyond the 
> old-timer that knows the seasons.  And since climatology is, under the 
> hood, the study of weather (among other topics), this might mean 
> something.  They are a bit more knowledgeable than your average Joe on 
> the topic, and they are much more skeptical.  This should raise some 
> red flags somewhere, and not in the "we need to debunk these guys" sense.
>
> Another reason was also mentioned in the article.  From what it sounds 
> like, the current state of weather prediction via computer models is 
> sorely lame.  Granted, the weather is extremely chaotic - but I would 
> expect them to being doing better, or at least be more consistent 
> amongst the different models.  Since much of climate science is 
> predicated on models, this should worry people.  I'd hate to bet the 
> farm on a computer model that hasn't been dialed in more than your 
> average web browser has.
>
> One more reason that I think that meteorologists are more skeptical: 
> they deal day-to-day with the reality of temperature fluctuations.  
> They see how much the temperature fluctuates from early morning to mid 
> afternoon.  They see how one day can be much warmer or cooler than the 
> previous one.  Alaska saw as much as a 90F change in temperature 
> between one day and the next this current winter.  They also see the 
> size of the temperature changes as the seasons change, and how the 
> days compare year-to-year.  They see the changes in the jet stream, 
> the changes in precipitation, and so forth.  Is it not reasonable to 
> be skeptical of scientists that take all these temperature swings, 
> from all over the globe, and come down with one number per year for a 
> temperature anomaly?  That they measure 1F of increase over 90 years 
> from a dataset that varies wildly day-to-day, county-to-county, 
> land-to-sea, altitude to altitude by large orders of magnitude more 
> than this?  I wish they would have at least touched on this.
>
> Anyway, I'm done ranting now.  I wish reporters had the luxury to 
> treat this as any other scientific field and not be pressured by their 
> fears that This Is Too Important Not to Treat Seriously.
>
> Paul
>
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