UPDATE: 11/25 I now have word from a reputable source close to TWC that Cullen was indeed part of the layoff. – Anthony
I’ve been following this story since yesterday, but the details kept being somewhat nebulous. Since WaPo has it, I’ve decided it is safe to consider reasonably accurate now. It looks like TWC has ditched their entire environmental unit, and possibly also host Heidi Cullen, who once said:
“If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming.” “Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy.” “If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval.”
Needless to say, I and many other current and former TV meteorologists took exception to the issue. I posted on it almost two years ago here.
TWC’s Heidi Cullen
From the Washington Post: (h/t to Jason Samenow)
NBC Fires Weather Channel Environmental Unit
Some on-camera meteorologists also let go
*A very cold evening: PM forecast update*
NBC Universal made the first of potentially several rounds of staffing cuts at The Weather Channel (TWC) on Wednesday, axing the entire staff of the “Forecast Earth” environmental program during the middle of NBC’s “Green Week”, as well as several on-camera meteorologists. The layoffs totaled about 10 percent of the workforce, and are the first major changes made since NBC completed its purchase of the venerable weather network in September.
Keep reading for more on The Weather Channel cuts…
The layoffs affected about 80 people, but left the long-term leadership of the network unclear, according to a source who requested anonymity due to the continuing uncertainty at the station.
Among the meteorologists who was let go was Dave Schwartz, a Weather Channel veteran and a viewer staple due to his lively on camera presentations. USA Today reported that meteorologists Cheryl Lemke and Eboni Deon were also let go.
The timing of the Forecast Earth cancellation was ironic, since it came in the middle of NBC’s “Green is Universal” week, during which the network has been touting its environmental coverage across all of its platforms. Forecast Earth normally aired on weekends, but its presumed last episode was shown on a weekday due to the environmentally-oriented week.
Forecast Earth was hosted by former CNN anchor Natalie Allen, with contributions from climate expert Heidi Cullen. It was the sole program on TWC that focused on global climate change, which raises the question of whether the station will still report on the subject. Cullen’s future role at the network is not known.
By Andrew Freedman | November 21, 2008; 5:00 PM ET
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Will Small (23:51:13) :
Which catastrophic tipping point do you think we’ve passed? When I get some time I’d like to write a web listing the tipping points people have suggested and provide links supporting and doubting claims.
Will Small (17:59:49) :
You know you guys, I don’t really see anyone refuting the scientific facts here.
I will not be as scientific as TomVonk, but I am also a scientist, retired particle physicist in Greece, and my pension, on the small side, is adequate to self finance my late interest in climate science.
If a governmental panel came up with a report that said: “the sun will be rising half an hour sooner every day”, would you believe the report? Would you check the time the sun comes up? The latter is the skeptics method.
We were given a report that says it is warming, and also in 800 pages gives various “scenaria” of how the video scape of earth will be in the future. Us skeptics are checking on the time the sun comes out, and we have seen that the projections and expectations of this voluminous AR4 report are falsified on at least 4 points.
Mind you, even one point wrong discards a theory.
Here are the points with links that I hope you can study:
1) Temperatures do not follow IPCC projections. Here is an easy plot to remind you of this:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ipccchart.jpg
2) The fingerprint of CO2 in the tropical troposphere as set out in the AR4 report is absent in the data. Here are the links
for models from the IPCC report:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf
this is the data:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/GHGModsvsReality.jpg
The tropical troposphere is not heating up as the IPCC claims.
3) The oceans are cooling instead of warming which is necessary to inculpate CO2, that it sets off a feedback loop with vapour and induces excess greenhouse warming:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025
The truth is, nature does not follow the GCM IPCC models.
4) the specific humidity is not rising as it should in order to create the above mentioned runaway feedback loop predicated in the models:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/Timeseries/timeseries.pl?ntype=1&var=Specific+Humidity+(up+to+300mb+only)&level=300&lat1=90&lat2=-90&lon1=-180&lon2=180&iseas=1&mon1=0&mon2=11&iarea=0&typeout=2&Submit=Create+Timeseries
sorry, you have to copy and paste the link, I cannot make a short link here.
The basic premise of the models, that the tiny, (anthropogenic CO2 is a tiny fraction of the CO2 in the atmosphere:
http://www.co2web.info/Icecap_CarbonDioxide.pdf) anthropogenic CO2 is the straw that breaks the camel’s back and starts runaway greenhouse warming is absolutely not supported by the data
And do tell me if you think there is any driving correlation between the rise in CO2 and global temperatures in this plot: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Correlation_of_Carbon_Dioxide_with_Temperatures_Negative_Again.pdf
Thus, imo, all this AGW business is a production set up to stampede the masses into supporting destructive policies they would never consider otherwise.
So us skeptics have checked the data, and the claims of the IPCC reports are bogus. The models have to go back to the drawing board.
How to stop the stampede is the question before irreparable harm to humanity occurs. Humans, like all mamals, are prone to stampedes.
“I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t go head to head with most of you on every piece of data.” — Mr Small
I would lay dollars to donuts that you can’t go head to head with most of us on any piece of data. I bet that you can make wonderous rhetorical arguments for coming catastrophe. I am betting that you were won over by rhetoric, and so can only defend your position by rhetoric. In other words, you have an English major’s deep understanding of science.
Since you weren’t reasoned into your position in the first place, it is also plain that you cannot be reasoned out of it. Prove me wrong, please. Slap us down with superior argument!
OK, I am guilty of not reading the whole thread before making that last comment. Small does seem capable of regurgitating dogma fed to him by others, he does not seem, however to be able to critically assess it or to be able to critically asses counter argument.
Warmest October on Record? The fact that he would use that laugher around here just shows how limited his reading on the subject is. In other words, don’t read anything with which you disagree. Hurts your head, I’m sure.
TWC is an invited guest in people’s homes. Who wants to invite that harpy ideologue Cullen back into their home? Not me, certainly. The GW propaganda was also slipped into regular programming to the point where I no longer watched the channel.
TomVonk,
I don’t think it is necessary to grasp these complex topics before an understanding of the situation is gained. Off topic, but I would guess that many of the authors of these papers can’t get a good grasp of entropy and the enormous impact it has on driving heat transfer. I think it is counterproductive to infer that someone is too ignorant of the science to participate in these discussions. In fact, some of the concepts are quite simple.
For example: take the problems with the computer models that show runaway global warming…
If we want to model the future climate, we write an elaborate computer program that makes forcasts if we put in all the correct data (current temperatures, pressures, solar radiation, etc…). Testing this model is straight forward. We pick a time in the past when we know what the weather is. Then we back up 50 years or so and put in the data from that time. Does our climate model program spit out the correct temperature for 50 years ago based on the data from 100 years ago? No. So, we change a few coefficients and try again. Eventually our computer program correctly spits out the temperature for 1950 based on 1900.
Then we try another temp; say, 1970. We put in the data for 1900 and see if it can predict the 1970 temp. Does it? No. So, we just fiddle with a few more coefficients and equations until it works.
As of today, there are no climate models that have been created to properly model even the past climate events. They are all faulty. They don’t work. It is a simple concept.
The guys writing those computer models are quite brilliant, and very good at what they do. However, the models don’t work. None of them. Climate is just too tricky. They can’t predict past trends, much less future trends. Also, any large purturbations, such as volcanoes and local cooling or warming events causes the models to go haywire. The climate does not follow the models.
So…
This is just one example of something that you don’t have to be a physicist or engineer to puzzle through.
It would help all of us if more of the non-technical crowd would become educated in these matters, so please don’t scare them away! Maybe you were trying to educate Mr. Small, but the impression I got from reading your post was that you were trying to intimidate him. If I am mistaken, then I apologize. I believe that there are simpler sources to defend your position.
Oh, and Mr. Small,
I am a Volleyball coach and I drive a 1992 Probe with 140,000 miles on it.
I used to really like the Weather Channel, but for years now they have been too busy with crap like when weather changed history or the AGW gloom of the week. Stuff that it is completely useless and uninteresting. When are they going to figure out that the morons out there are not their audience and lay off the pseudo science 2nd grade crap?
As for AGW I really need someone to explain to me how warming would be bad? I am absolutely freezing much of the year, and this year the growing season was VERY short.
Why is lake property on a little fake lake like Havasu worth so much more than my property on Lake Baikal? Baikal is a lot nicer in many ways. Heck, my old house on Lake Huron doesn’t even command much of a price. People, plants animals like carbon dioxide and a little warmer than what We have. Too bad the CO2 doesn’t appear to have much if any impact on warming.
Will Small
You apparently have just stumbled in here and are new. The things you think are scientific “Facts” because someone said so, and “everyone knows” are in fact the things which are being debated.
Many of the posters here have far more background than I do and I have a BS in Chemistry and Physics and the course work for 3 related masters degrees. In addition I have followed the issue for over 20 years working with it indirectly. The more an honest person understands about the assumptions that are built into the entire idea of human caused Global Warming the less they are likely to believe it.
Wondering Aloud (07:02:17) :
As for AGW I really need someone to explain to me how warming would be bad? I am absolutely freezing much of the year, and this year the growing season was VERY short.
Here is the explanation:
During our current ice age, geologists are able to get pretty good pictures of certain things based on ocean floor sediments, ice core samples, and fossil records. During this ice age, there are periods of glaciation and inter glaciation. We are currently in the latter. During the colder time periods, the world becomes windier, stormier, and drier. (storms here are storm systems). This is shown by the amount and composition of dust in the ice and the water content of the ice, shapes of ice crystals, composition of silts, and composition of fossils. Very clever, those geologists.
So, during our current ice age, when the temperature drops, storm systems become more intense (increased temperature gradient between the tropics and the poles), the climate dries, and the earth becomes windy. The total biomass supported on land decreases dramatically.
Before our current ice age, temperatures were mild, rainfall was plentiful, and land masses were able to sustain a higher biomass than even the warm periods of our interglacial maximums.
Thus, colder is better and warmer is dangerous.
See, humans would never have been able to evolve and advance without the enourmous pressure to survive that the current ice age has caused. This is one of the primary driving forces for evolution of species. With warm, mild weather favorable for more land based life, humans will get lazy. In the past, if food was easy access, then humans would not have needed to advance in order to survive, and we would still live in trees. We need a little hardship to help get us back on track, and toughen us up. Bring on the cold.
Hope this clears things up!
Perhaps Mr. Small could explain why surface station data is diverging from satellite data particularly for the last ten years. According to UAH, October 2008 ranks 10th warmest since 1979. October 2008 ranks second coolest since 1998, and the coldest since 2001.
RSS is similar.
Yet, haven’t we been told not to place much confidence in one month’s worth of data? Or one year for that matter? Will Small, as the earth fails to warm and falsifies IPCC guesses, you and others like you will get more desperate. Hopefully by then the public will see through the facade.
Year Globe
1979 0.13
1980 0.09
1981 -0.01
1982 -0.23
1983 -0.09
1984 -0.19
1985 -0.29
1986 -0.26
1987 0.21
1988 0.12
1989 0.04
1990 0.13
1991 -0.04
1992 -0.13
1993 -0.06
1994 -0.13
1995 0.11
1996 0.08
1997 0.14
1998 0.39
1999 0.03
2000 0.06
2001 0.24
2002 0.18
2003 0.35
2004 0.29
2005 0.39
2006 0.34
2007 0.23
2008 0.16
Year Globe
1998 0.39
1999 0.03
2000 0.06
2001 0.24
2002 0.18
2003 0.35
2004 0.29
2005 0.39
2006 0.34
2007 0.23
2008 0.16
For some reason the numbers did not post properly, try again:
Year Globe
1998 0.39
1998 0.39
2005 0.39
2003 0.35
2006 0.34
2004 0.29
2001 0.24
2007 0.23
1987 0.21
2002 0.18
2008 0.16
1997 0.14
1979 0.13
1990 0.13
1988 0.12
1995 0.11
1980 0.09
1996 0.08
2000 0.06
1989 0.04
1999 0.03
1981 -0.01
1991 -0.04
1993 -0.06
1983 -0.09
1992 -0.13
1994 -0.13
1984 -0.19
1982 -0.23
1986 -0.26
1985 -0.29
Year Globe
2005 0.39
2003 0.35
2006 0.34
2004 0.29
2001 0.24
2007 0.23
2002 0.18
2008 0.16
2000 0.06
1999 0.03
Just a coincidence or is this more evidence that sanity might actually prevail?
http://climate.weather.com/blogs/9_17988.html
Does anybody esle wonder if the recent cooling is due to the increase in pirates we have all been reading about?
Hello again.
First, apologies for some of my etiquette breaches on this blog. Yes, I’m a bit emotional about this topic which I realize is totally un-scientific.
Be that as it may, I appreciate everyone’s help in dissuading me from my delusion that GW is a really serious issue that we need to act on to prevent catastrophe.
And to be really straightforward, as I mentioned earlier, I stumbled here on the GE/TWC/FE post.
Obviously, I hang out on forums on the other side of the issue like Climate Progress – http://climateprogress.org/
I think the fella that runs CP makes science understandable for non-scientist folks like myself.
The other part of my posting here is not to incite but to learn where your mindset is coming from. I realize the Exxon line may have been out of line but here’s the point. If you work for exxon you have a very vested interest in the outcome of this debate.
My self interest? Sure, i’m trying to save the planet. Laugh if you will, but I’m not trying to make a buck or keep my job. In fact, my position on the issue actually puts me at economic risk.
But anyways, from what I understand is that this whole GW debate has been going on because “the science isn’t settled”. Well, when is the science ever settled? When it’s too late? Because if that’s what it takes, then I think science is doing a dis-service to mankind.
Afterall, what’s the downside if GW is a fraud? We would have cleaner air & water by reducing coal power. We would have alternative fuels and be energy independent. It seems like there’s a lot of upside on this, is there not? Much more so than the downside. Someone said, so what if it gets hotter? I think folks here must know what that means on many levels besides just submerged beach front property.
But I’ll say that this is a learning experience just being here and talking with you. Sort of like a Democrat at the Republican convention. Our side is won over on the facts as we know them. At this time, folks such as myself need to better understand what it will take to win you over.
So I’ll conclude by saying, what would it take to convince you that GW or AGW is real? What is the one absolute irrevocable fact that would convince you that we need to act to prevent total disaster?
I await your answers.
Thanks for listening.
Here’s a good report on jounalism gone fanatic
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/did_nbc_risk_employee_lives_in.html
Will –
The fact that CO2 is an essential plant fertilizer is often over-looked by many of the “greens.” It is a limiting reactant that plants are literally starving for. While no good scientific study has been conducted, best estimates I have seen are that food production has been enhanced by 15% with the increase in CO2. Thus, if you want to grow enough food on this planet to feed 6+ billion people, we need all the CO2 we can get. BTW – greenhouse growers increase the CO2 present in their production of vegetables.
Also, as was stated earlier, ALL computer models rely on CO2 having this positive feedback built in to their programs. Current data and evidence from satellites does NOT support this.
Finally, does it actually feel warmer this year than any say twenty years ago? Our spring and winters are still starting and stopping on about the same time they always have. If we were truly warming, then you would see much longer growing seasons in the temperate zones.
Mr. Small,
Please read the brief and non scientific explanation offered in the post above concerning the effects of raising temperatures. If you want a consensus, the geological community is very confident that warming, even dramatic warming, has always meant better weather for the world.
This is what I would need from you:
First, Proof (or logical near-proof) that global warming will be bad. Keep in mind that this proof will go against all the current science and all the known history of earth’s climate for the last 4 billion years. Before that, it is still a little sketchy. Please note that proof is not “This guys computer model shows that warming = doom”. Proof would be showing how when the earth warms, bad things happen. The earth has been much warmer than it is now (infact, it is warmer much more often than colder, but we are currently in an ice age). So, it should be easy to prove this if the data is out there (but it is not).
Second, Proof that adding CO2 to the atmosphere warms the planet significantly. This will be a much harder proof, as it will have to be more scientific and the topic is much more complicated. I have an open mind. If our current understanding of geology and paleo-climatology is wrong, and if the experts in CO2 spectroscopy are wrong, and if the engineering and physics community do not understand thermodynamics and cause-effect relationships, then your position may well be valid.
Mr Small, (sounds like the name of the villian in the next Bond film)
“What is the one absolute irrevocable fact that would convince you that we need to act to prevent total disaster?”
Answer: That human emissions of CO2 drive the climate. Prove that and you’ll have a lot of followers.
So far we’ve only seen a few anecdotes. And history shows a very poor correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and global temps.
Show us strong evidence.
And there is a real danger in being wrong. The slightly cleaner air will come at a huge cost in terms of prosperity for poor countries, freedom, government interference and world resources being shifted from solving urgent problems like hunger, disease, poverty etc. to solving a problem that does not really exist. Millions will die. Look at the biofuel farce, as one single example.
Will Small (10:58:48) :
Afterall, what’s the downside if GW is a fraud? We would have cleaner air & water by reducing coal power. We would have alternative fuels and be energy independent. It seems like there’s a lot of upside on this, is there not? Much more so than the downside. Someone said, so what if it gets hotter? I think folks here must know what that means on many levels besides just submerged beach front property.
Yes. It means millions starving and millions dead. Cap and trade will keep those uppity third world counties in their place, totaly undeveloped with rich from selling carbon credits dictators. This is what the AGW crowd is glossing over and ignoring.
So I too want to save the world, from the sure catastrophy of cap and trade programs.
So I’ll conclude by saying, what would it take to convince you that GW or AGW is real? What is the one absolute irrevocable fact that would convince you that we need to act to prevent total disaster?
As I said, total disaster would be the implementation of these stupid programs of stopping CO2, and innocuous minor greenhouse gas that is vital for life. Did you know that if the level of CO2 falls below 150ppm plants die? Did you know that plants thrive with 1000ppm in true green houses? Did you know that the alveoli in your lungs carry such large numbers of CO2 in order for oxygen exchange to work?
Up to last November I was not paying attention and believed the AGW stuff, trusting in the scientific integrity of other scientists. Until the hockey stick debacle made me look up, and see that not all scientists have integrity, and start delving in the AR4 reports. All 800 pages of the “physics” justifications.
To reply to your question: Correct science. The AGW science is a farce.
And BTW, I am all for alternative energy and conserving the oil we have for future generations, it is useful for a lot of stuff other than making CO2. But this can be pursued at a logical pace without destroying western civilization as we know it and further destroying the third world.
In 50 years plentiful clean energy from fusion will be available and the burning of oil will be a non issue.
I am all for alte
Mr Small,
and if you honestly look at the approach used by AIT, and Hansen, etc., you really got to wonder. I mean some of their claims are really off the wall, or proven to be just plain phoney.
Will, the question you pose at the end isn’t answerable with just one datum point. The fact that we’re talking about systems should make that pretty clear.
I can only answer your question with one of my own- what convinced you that AGW is in fact actually occuring for the reasons as stated (driven by CO2)?
Will Small (10:58:48) :
I appreciate the toned down rhetoric.
You ask a fair question:
But, of course, there is no easy answer. As I’ve pointed out before, I happen to believe GW and AGW are real. It’s the catastrophic part I question, and the single-minded pursuit of CO2 as the villain.
Imagine if someone had asked in 1908, “what would convince you that automobiles will not destroy mankind by the year 2000.” It’s also as if I were to ask you “What is the one absolute irrevocable fact that would convice you that our climate is not headed to a state of disaster”?
But I will tell you what would give me pause.
Despite our previous exchange, I’m not sure you actually know what “Hansen’s Scenario B” is.
Take a look at this graph.
In 2005, Hansen published this chart as an update to his famous projections in 1988. At the time (2005), observed temperatures (he uses land-only for some reason) were just about the same as “Scenario B”, which we’re now told are the forcings that have actually happened. Despite the fact that the observed temps were also very close to “Scenario C”, which assumed draconian cuts in GHG emissions in 2000, there was a lot of back-slapping and high fives in the AGW community about Hansen’s “vindication.” Guess what, the asterisks in the graph I’ve linked to represent data since 2005. In fact, as I’ve pointed out recently elsewhere on this blog, 2008 will come in somewhere around an anomaly of 0.5K.
So after all that, if in ~5 years, the observed anomaly curve is back up to Scenario B, I might start believing climate scientists are doing more than just over-fitting a short term trend.
What about you? If observed temperatures continue to lag far behind Scenario B, are you willing to change your opinion?
Will Small (10:58:48) :
“Afterall, what’s the downside if GW is a fraud? We would have cleaner air & water by reducing coal power. We would have alternative fuels and be energy independent. It seems like there’s a lot of upside on this, is there not?”
I think everybody reading here would agree with cleaner air and water. Thing is a modern coal plant produces very little pollution if you do not count CO2, and other forms of fuel like natural gas produce no pollution. Most(though not all) fuels do not pollute water.
Then consider Bio fuels cause huge pollution, energy saving light bulbs contain mercury, wind power has a huge physical footprint, tidal barriers and dams destroy habitat.
I will not attempt to list the environmental problems of the world but if i made the list then climate change would be just one on the list. All the money is going to this one issue so if it is not as serious as some think then its a waste of money.
Mandating renewable energy by law takes resources from the most effective technology to the one which is politically popular eg corn ethanol. Also it makes energy more expensive which hurts the poor the most. Governments could make much more effective energy policies (including renewables) if you forget about CO2.
Sorry Coach
Since all of civilizaton has occured during the current interglacial, and it had its first origin and flowering during a period warmer than the present, that explanation simply doesn’t wash. In fact major advances tend to correlate somewhat with warmer periods.
darn good tongue in cheek try though.
Wondering Aloud
Since all of civilizaton has occured during the current interglacial, and it had its first origin and flowering during a period warmer than the present, that explanation simply doesn’t wash. In fact major advances tend to correlate somewhat with warmer periods.
My language was not specific enough, I am afraid. I was not talking about the advances of HUMANS, but the advancement of species. Before the pre-cambrian explosion, life on the planet was nothing but Archaebacteria. Then, there was an episode that looks like it may have been a “snowball Earth” event. Very shortly after (and maybe during the later stages) of this event, the biosphere exploded with diversity, and the multicellular buggers swimming in the ocean had the genes for all phyla. Amazing!
In between ice ages, the reptiles flourished. Our biosphere became locked into a system with dinosaurs as the predominant animal land walkers. It took a Climate disaster to reset the populations so that mammals could emerge.
Ever wonder what caused the differentiation among the homoerectus crowd? Careful mapping of divergent populations of simians (and all other species) has shown us that evolution does not occur as a smooth progression following pressure and competition for resources. Rather, evolution favors something called punctuated equilibrium, where species suddenly change significantly between periods of relatively stable genetic make-up. This punctuation of rapid development coincides with the ice ages. Again, I say it: AMAZING! We are uncovering more and more information about homoerectus australeopithicus, neanderthal, and finally sapiens, we have come to the conclusion the our ancestors, as well as those of all other life, evolve the fastest during the glaciations. In particular, humans (or their ancesters, if you will) have survived through several bottle necks of near extinction (some mammals did not make it). During the recover period after these hard times, the species advanced significantly. Larynxes sufficient for complicated speech, larger cerebral cortexes needed for more dextrous hand movements, etc…
In the middle of the last glaciation, the climate was so harsh (and perhaps exacerbated by the eruption of the Toba Caldera), geneticists tell us that perhaps as few as 33 fertile females were extant on the planet! Fascinating! I just wish I could remember enough about genetics to know how they arrived at this number… Anyway, it is weird sometimes to think that if it were not for the ice ages, life might still be a soup of archaebacteria.
In short, Wondering Aloud, I was not talking about civilization advances, but evolutionary advances of our species, but I was not very clear with my rambling!