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Scientists and Weathercasters at Odds on Warming
New York Times ^ | March 29, 2010 | Leslie Kaufman

Posted on 03/29/2010 3:04:58 PM PDT by reaganaut1

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. Meteorologists, who predict short-term weather patterns, are not so sure.

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 the company’s Web site.

Such skepticism is widespread among TV forecasters. A study 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 less 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 television forecasters — dominate communications channels to the public

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; climatechange; climatology; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; meteorology
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To: OldMissileer
On a personal note -- I'll show my ignorance re your tagline: "PK"?

(I've been in some of the others' silos...)

21 posted on 03/29/2010 6:01:39 PM PDT by TXnMA (D'Aleo re Hansen's "GISS" temperature database: "Non Gradus Anus Rodentum!")
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To: TXnMA
On a personal note -- I'll show my ignorance re your tagline: "PK"? (I've been in some of the others' silos...)

Peacekeeper. The Odd Squad at Malmstrom AFB. Now off Alert.

22 posted on 03/29/2010 7:04:14 PM PDT by OldMissileer (Atlas, Titan, Minuteman, PK. Winners of the Cold War)
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To: OldMissileer
Peacekeeper. The Odd Squad at Malmstrom AFB. Now off Alert.

Sorry. Not the Odd Squad. That was the Deuce Squadron like my Wing at Grand Forks. It was the Peacekeeper ICBM though.

23 posted on 03/29/2010 7:05:47 PM PDT by OldMissileer (Atlas, Titan, Minuteman, PK. Winners of the Cold War)
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To: reaganaut1
Climatologists are almost always affiliated with universities...

...and rely 100% on Government funding for their livelihoods. They will be long dead before their disaster scenarios will be proven wrong by history. They are free to forecast any damn thing they choose to and they never have to live with their mistakes.

The humble TV weather man, on the other hand, only has to get the forecast right most of the time for the next day, or next week, in order to keep his job. People actually do rely on what he says, not just for picnics or golf, but for business. If he screws up, it can cost lots of money, or even lives!

The fact is, while the 'university PhDs with their big grants and billion dollar computer models keep calling it wrong season after season, (where did all the hurricanes they called for go?) the humble TV weather forecasters get it right most of the time. When they miss a big event, they are toast.

They are not perfect, but at least they are applying proven scientific principles to a mathematically 'chaotic' equation. They are not using questionable 'models' based on unproven theories and cooked historical data intentionally spiked to show a linear response that has never once been demonstrated to be accurate.

I take Joe Bustardi, the weather guy, over Michael Mann any day. Interestingly, they are both at Penn State.

24 posted on 03/29/2010 8:11:04 PM PDT by Ditto
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To: reaganaut1; All
One of the big difference is that meteorologists work with models, understand how models work, and know how models need to be validated.

The global climate models cannot be validated because they have essentially only one “run” to validate against. Daily weather models have hundreds of runs a year to validate against, and are being improved all the time, based on what is really happening.

Meteorologists know that this cannot be done with climate for at least hundreds of years, so the models only show what the modelers think they should show.

25 posted on 03/29/2010 8:18:12 PM PDT by marktwain
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To: OldMissileer

Thanks! I’ll reveal my antiquity:the silos I was in were Titans — and they were under construction... ;-)


26 posted on 03/29/2010 9:08:18 PM PDT by TXnMA (D'Aleo re Hansen's "GISS" temperature database: "Non Gradus Anus Rodentum!")
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To: TXnMA
I was a Combat Crewmember, BMAT, in the Titan II weapon system in the 70s and early 80s. McConnell AFB, Wichita, KS.
27 posted on 03/29/2010 9:16:50 PM PDT by OldMissileer (Atlas, Titan, Minuteman, PK. Winners of the Cold War)
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To: OldMissileer

I also was USAF at the time (1961)- but was just on “visiting fireman” tours (from Lowry to Buckley) — before the silos were occupied...


28 posted on 03/29/2010 9:31:13 PM PDT by TXnMA (D'Aleo re Hansen's "GISS" temperature database: "Non Gradus Anus Rodentum!")
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