Hot Air: Why don’t TV weathermen believe in climate change?

Columbia Journalism Review ^ | January 2010 | Charles Homans

[Sneakyuser]

...Among the certified meteorologists Wilson 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 AMS. But the next most popular answer, with 16 percent, was “no one.” The third was “myself.”

[Sneakyuser]

The biggest difference I noticed between the meteorologists who rejected climate science and those who didn’t was not how much they knew about the subject, but how much they knew about how much they knew—how clearly they recognized the limits of their own training. Among those in the former category was Bob Breck, the AMS-certified chief meteorologist at Fox affiliate WVUE in New Orleans and a thirty-two-year veteran of the business. Breck rejected the notion of human-driven climate change wholesale—“I just find that [idea] to be quite arrogant,” he told me. Instead, when Breck talked to local schools and Rotaries and Kiwanis clubs about climate change, he presented his own ideas: warming trends were far more dependent on the water vapor in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, he told them, and the appearance of an uptick in global temperatures was the result of the declining number of weather stations in cold rural areas.

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See the excellent video by John Coleman here:

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/59484447.html

See more Coleman videos and articles here:

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner

[ApplegateRanch]

Breck rejected the notion of human-driven climate change wholesale—“I just find that [idea] to be quite arrogant,” he told me.

B'rrrn the heretic!

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[chris37]

My guess is that those who predict the weather from day to day know how difficult that really is, and for people to pretend to be able to predict weather decades in advance is just absurd.

[SnakeDoctor]

Weathermen are wrong often enough to be appropriately humbled by the complexity of the climate.

SnakeDoc

[steelyourfaith]

LOL ... and then this “... the appearance of an uptick in global temperatures was the result of the declining number of weather stations in cold rural areas.”

[fatnotlazy]

Many years ago, when the term was “greenhouse effect,” a noted local meteorologist was asked about it. Not in so many words..he said it was all a bunch of hooey. The man is retired now; and I don't know if his opinion has changed, but even back then, both ordinary people and experts didn't buy this nonsense.

[RoadTest]

Because they’re the real experts and they know better.

[The Great RJ]

Simple answer is TV meteorologists are paid to forecast the weather and their TV stations revenues depend on their accuracy for ratings. Climate change zealots live on government grants in academia and call success the publication of politically correct “research” that opens the door for more government grants. We saw first hand from the leaked CRI e-mails that anyone who tries to publish research that is contrary to the politically correct view is blackballed and gets funding cuts.

[chiller]

Recent studies suggest the sun's magnetic activity is bombarding us and creating ionization in the atmosphere which creates water vapor, which would have lots to do with "climate change", but also day- to- day weather.

We know the sun is virtually erupting with magnetic storms, whose output fluctuates dramatically. It would similarly be impossible to predict how that energy affects our spinning planet....when it hits our atmosphere, day or night, at what intensity, what part of planet is most affected (land or sea, moist or humid, hot or cold air), etc.

It seems plain as day and night that's why weather can't be predicted with any certainty even for more than a few hours. The big ball in the sky runs in overdrive some of the time, and then coasts along at a leisurely pace at others.

------------------------------------end of theory

The CJR author seemed a bit dumb-founded at times, trying to determine what makes the neanderthals gw deniers. Notice he avoided some of the known events like the Mid Evil Warming Period which immediately casts suspicions on some grandiose warming theory.

[SunkenCiv]

I miss our longtime local meteorologist, Craig James. Once they gave him a 'blog on the TV station website, he excoriated the frauds and scoundrels. Then he retired and his 'blog was deleted in about two seconds.

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[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Many years ago, when the term was “greenhouse effect,” a noted local meteorologist was asked about it. Not in so many words..he said it was all a bunch of hooey.

When I was going for my meteorology degree back in the 80s, I had a professor who was originally from Germany. One day a student asked him what he thought about the greenhouse effect. He answered in the way he always did when he thought an idea was ridiculous (with a thick accent, of course): "The greenhouse effect is bull!" Barely qualifies as a mild oath, but everything sounded funny when he said it.

[fatnotlazy]

Great story. Thanks for sharing.