From Alabamawx.com by Bill Murray
A survey of weathercasters’ feelings on global warming was published in this month’s edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. It had some interesting findings. There were 121 respondents. 94% of the respondents had at least one of the three major seals.
Television meteorologists are the official scientists for most television stations. The overwhelming majority felt comfortable in that role for their stations. The majority agreed that the role of discussing climate change did fall to them.
The eyebrow raising responses:
“Respond to this IPCC conclusion: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” Only 35% agreed or strongly agreed. 34% disagreed or strongly disagreed.
“Most of the warming since 1950 is likely human induced.” A full 50% disagreed or strongly disagreed. 25% were neutral on this question. Only 8% strongly agreed.
“Global climate models are reliable in their predictions for a warming of the planet.” Only 3% strongly agreed and another 16% agreed. A full 62% disagreed or strongly disagreed.
“Respond to one TV weathercaster’s Quote saying “Global warming is a scam.” Responses were mixed. The largest percentage was neutral, at 26%. A total of 45% disagreed (23%) or strongly disagreed (22%). 19% of the respondents agreed with this statement and 10% strongly agreed.
The amount of uncertainty found in this survey tells that even the most educated and motivated communicators are still uncertain about the truth on this issue. Interesting article.
The entire text can be found at: http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/90/10/pdf/i1520-0477-90-10-1457.pdf
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WAG (08:29:36) :
“But ironically, its actually easier to predict the climate 50-60 years from now than it is to predict next weeks weather, because over longer time periods, short-term variability (the part thats hard to predict) doesnt have any effect.”
Could you provide some evidence for this assertion? The problem with climate modeling is that even though you’re “filtering” out the short term “weather noise,” you still have hundreds of parameters associated with the long term climate modeling, many of which are poorly understood and may even be modeled incorrectly.
The real irony is that the same time marching numerical methods used in short term NWP forecast models are also used in the climate models! And, by the way, the governing equations for climate models (both atmosphere and ocean) are very non-linear…
WAG (08:29:36) :
“Meteorologists study how local variables will influence weather patterns over the next few days. Climatologists study how many more variables interact over time on a global scale – a much more complex endeavor.”
“But ironically, its actually easier to predict the climate 50-60 years from now than it is to predict next weeks weather, because over longer time periods, short-term variability (the part thats hard to predict) doesnt have any effect.”
It is “much more complex”, but also “easier to predict”. You are breaking with standard scientific logic, when you equate, more complexity, compounded over a greater time, with greater accuracy in predicting future outcomes.
Climatology is just the summation of meteorological principals, and the projection of stability or instability in future scenerios. The difficulty is determining what is noise and what is signal, in a longer term forecast. So far, the determining factor for a climatologist in separating signal from noise in a chaotic system, is who is willing to pay for what services.
Since meteorology is less based on spinning a good horror story, and more based on how the current weather will be changed by the passage of time, it is more accurate, and will be more accurate, as long as paychecks are based on different levels, of what constitutes performance.
John F. Hultquist (19:45:53) :
“A few years ago I lost all trust in TV weather people. I wrote to tell the station weather presenter the visuals they used showed 12:00 A.M. and 12:00 P.M. and with respect to time these two things were undefined, and they should figure out which was which and use NOON and MIDNIGHT. I got back a none-too-polite note telling me TV meteorologists had decided otherwise. The person did not explain how they decided – maybe they used one of these scaled questions.”
At least you got a response. Here’s a (revised version of a) letter I sent several years ago to all the Seattle TV stations, suggesting another way of making things clearer. I hope Anthony (or someone with connections to a TV news department) will pick up the ball and run with it. (Perhaps my idea has been independently invented, and weather stations are now employing it. I don’t watch TV anymore, so I wouldn’t know.)
=======
There is a bad habit common to the weather broadcasts at too many TV stations. When showing the high and low temperatures for the current day’s temperature in relation to the historic Normal and Record high/lows for the period, they display a table of six figures. The table typically is arranged in two columns (for high and low) and three rows (for Today, Normal, and Record). Here’s an example:
High Low
Today 65 45
Normal 60 40
Record 80 30
This leaves the viewer with the tedious task of trying to picture in his mind’s eye what the figures mean. If a chart were used instead, it would immediately convey what he wants to know. The chart should be “scaled” each day so as to force its vertical midpoint to match the midpoint of the historical Normal temperature range for that day.
Centered between the left and right edges of that chart there should be a single thick Vertical BAR (hereafter called “VBAR”) representing the current day’s temperature range. The viewer could see instantly if it was closer to the top or the bottom of the chart, indicating whether the day was hotter or cooler than ordinary.
There should be a yellow horizontal band “highlighting” the Normal temperature range for the day. The VBAR’s position in relation to this band would instantly reveal whether the day so far had been warmer or cooler than normal, or neither.
To further assist the viewer, there should be a visual way to indicate a record-breaking day. I suggest indicating historical record high by including a red horizontal band at the very top of the chart whose lower edge would represent the record-high temperature. The record low would be indicated by a blue band at the very bottom. If the VBAR came close to one of these bands, viewers would know that the day had been extraordinarily hot (or cold). Since that’s what the viewer wants to know, that’s what the screen should show.
The temperature numbers for the chart could be omitted when the weather-person first displays the chart. This would keep from overwhelming the viewers and also help hold their interest throughout the weatherman’s presentation.
For example, at first an image with no numbers on it might appear, and the weatherman would say, “Here’s the shape of our whether today.” (Brief pause while the audience absorbs it.) Then he’d say, “Our high was X” (the high temperature appears—i.e., a new chart that includes that number is displayed). “The normal high for today is Y” (the number for the top of the yellow band appears). And so forth for the remainder of the figures.
It shouldn’t be hard to plug the daily high and low into a computer graphics program to produce such charts daily. (It would need to have access to a database of historic temperature data, of course.)
This same style of chart could be used to portray other weather-related information relative to historic norms, such as the past week’s (or month’s) temperature, or the day’s rainfall or windiness. Farmers would appreciate seeing the rainfall data in an instantly comprehensible form.
A pet peeve of mine, too. But it’s not confined to weather broadcasters. I think it’s a consequence of the limitations of computerization. It wouldn’t be hard to program ’12:00 AM’ to display as ‘Midnight’, but apparently no one wants to bother.
I won’t be surprised to see ‘Midnight’ and ‘Noon’ become as obsolete and ultimately meaningless as ‘dialing’ the phone.
/Mr Lynn
My third paragraph beneath the table of high/low figures should be improved as follows:
There should be a yellow horizontal band “highlighting” the Normal temperature range for the day. The VBAR’s position in relation to this band would reveal in more detail the day’s degree of normality. For instance, if the VBAR’s top extended above the upper edge of the yellow band, that would indicate an unusually warm day.
please delete my previous post with the bad bolding
WAG (08:29:36) said:
“But ironically, its actually easier to predict the climate 50-60 years from now than it is to predict next weeks weather, because over longer time periods, short-term variability (the part thats hard to predict) doesnt have any effect.”
Frank K. (09:02:52) asks:
“Could you provide some evidence for this assertion? ”
Of course. Any college dropout with an internet connection who is reasonably well read on global warming and the history of its discovery(that would be me &;>) knows that Arrhenius, with a model simple enough to work through on paper, made some predictions about 100 years ago that have been confirmed by observation.
Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927)
“On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground”(excerpts) Philosophical Magazine 41, 237-276 (1896)[1]
at http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/arrhenius.html
“The influence is in general greater in the winter than in the summer, except in the case of the parts that lie between the maximum and the pole. (check [1]))
The influence will also be greater the higher the value of ν, that is in general somewhat greater for land than for ocean. (check [1]))
On account of the nebulosity of the Southern hemisphere, the effect will be less there than in the Northern hemisphere.(check [2]))
An increase in the quantity of carbonic acid will of course diminish the difference in temperature between day and night. (check [3][4]))
A very important secondary elevation of the effect will be produced in those places that alter their albedo by the extension or regression of the snow-covering (see p. 257 [omitted from this excerpt–CJG]), and this secondary effect will probably remove the maximum effect from lower parallels to the neighbourhood of the poles.”(check [5][6]))
“I should certainly not have undertaken these tedious calculations if an extraordinary interest had not been connected with them.”
Of course, [snip] will try to conflate “inaccurate” and/or “incomplete” with “wrong”. For instance, Arrhenius overestimated the drop in CO2 for an ice age; had he had access to modern data, like the antarctic ice core delta18O temperature & CO2, he could have improved his model, but he already knew from first principles that the CO2 would drop. He did remarkably well for a paper & pencil model.
[1]”Though most areas of the world experienced above normal temperatures, the variability from season to season was notable in the Northern Hemisphere where much of the warmth was in winter and spring over northern and central Asia and northwestern North America.” Global Surface Air Temperature Variations During the Twentieth Century: Part 1, Spatial, Temporal and Seasonal Details, Jones et al
[2]Observed hemispheric asymmetry in global sea ice changes. Science, 278, 1104-1106, 1997. Cavalieri et al
[3] ” In general, we find increases of several percent per decade in specific humidity (and several tenths of a degree per decade in dew point) over most of the country in winter, spring, and summer, with larger trends at night than during the day. The specific humidity increases are consistent with upward temperature trends.” Climatology and Trends of U.S. Surface Humidity and Temperature, GAFFEN et al
[4] “…the minimum daily temperature over many of the continents rose almost three times as fast as the maximumdaily temperatures, As a result, the daily temperature range dropped noticeably,” Nighttime warming and the greenhouse effect. Kukla, G., Karl, T. R., 1993:
[5]”Therefore, anthropogenic forcing is the dominant cause of the recent pronounced warming in the Arctic.” Arctic climate change: observed and modelled
temperature and sea-ice variability, JOHANNESSEN et al
[6] “Decreased snow cover extent has significantly contributed to the earlier onset of spring in the past few decades over northern-hemisphere high latitudes.” Modern Global Climate Change. Karl et al
Alabamawx.com, hm? I’m sure Huntville, AL station WHNT’s Dan Satterfield will soon have a note up on his panic blog claiming that it’s invalid because “it’s not peer reviewed”, that it shows a lack of science education in this country because obviously only the few IPCC-trusting weatherfrogs do “real science”, and that anyway, he’s not going to read it (just like the surfacestations reports and article) unless it gets published in the right journal.
Brian Dodge,
You quote only Arrhenius’ 1896 paper. Arrhenius recanted his high sensitivity number ten years later, in his 1906 paper.
I am not surprised at these results. Doran and Zimmerman (2009) found that 64% of meteorologists answered yes to the question below while 97.4% of publishing climate scientists answered yes. The question:
Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
I suggest three reasons why TV weathercasters are not more aligned with the overwhelming scientific consensus:
1) Meteorologists that are researchers or academics are far more likely to be current with the literature than those who weather forecast for a living. I worked as an intern at CBS in Boston and the on-air meteorologists there spent most of their time preparing the forecast and the subsequent glitzy production. They were certainly not researching climate data nor developing any curricula. Climate knowledge for the TV people must be gained in their off time.
2) I noticed that more than 40% of the respondents were 40 years or older. As a 40+ aged meteorologist, I can tell you that I never had to take a paleoclimatology course nor any geology courses. Climate courses that I had to take did not discuss AGW. I wonder how many of these 40+ aged respondents had similar coursework? I actually left Penn State with my M.S. as a “neutral” on AGW. It is only after the IPCC (2001) and especially the IPCC (2007) reports that I am now convinced of AGW.
3) As several of you have already stated, weathercasters may be having a hard time distinguishing between weather forecasting and climate prediction. They see how difficult it is to get day to day weather correct so they assume that climate predictions are useless. Of course, weather prediction is trying to predict the “noise” while climate prediction is trying to predict the “signal” – which is much easier.
Doran, Peter T. & Zimmerman, M. K. (2009, January). Examining the scientific consensus on climate change. EOS 90 (3): 22–23. doi:10.1029/2009EO030002
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/ssi/DoranE0S09.pdf
Scott Mandia:
“I suggest three reasons why TV weathercasters are not more aligned with the overwhelming scientific consensus…”
There is no ‘overwhelming scientific consensus’. That is Al Gore’s canard, repeated endlessly by those hoping to convince people that a scientific consensus argument is valid. But there are certainly push polls bought by foundations that are designed to give that false impression.
This particular survey was done better than most. For example, asking if “most” of the warming is due to human emissions at least quantifies an amount [greater than 50%]. Most polls simply ask Yes/No questions like: “Human emissions are responsible for global warming.” But they do not say how much warming humans are responsible for. Is it 90%? 3%? 0.04%? It is left up to the interpretation of each person answering. So those polls mean nothing.
It has been repeatedly suggested that in order to get an honest response to accurate, quantified questions, both sides must cooperate and reach agreement in formulating the questions. Can you point to a single instance in which that has been done?
Finally, if as you say, you were converted by the UN’s IPCC reports, which were written exclusively by political appointees with specific marching orders, rather than by taking paleoclimatology and geology courses, it appears that your mind is made up. That is the difference between scientific skeptics, and those who continue to argue “consensus.”
Scott A. Mandia (12:06:28)
It is only after the IPCC (2001) and especially the IPCC (2007) reports that I am now convinced of AGW.
That is an astounding admission, Scott. What, exactly did they teach you at Penn? Certainly not to think for yourself, or to investigate an issue with any sort of thoroughness or vigor. I’d ask for my my money back.
Brian Dodge (11:36:21) :
Wow – who knew that Arrhenius was working out 3-D solutions to an AOGCM back in the early 20th century? I guess you learn something new every day! He must have been best friends with L.F. Richardson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Fry_Richardson
Scott A. Mandia (12:06:28)
“3) As several of you have already stated, weathercasters may be having a hard time distinguishing between weather forecasting and climate prediction. They see how difficult it is to get day to day weather correct so they assume that climate predictions are useless. Of course, weather prediction is trying to predict the noise while climate prediction is trying to predict the signal which is much easier.”
AGAIN – Do you have any evidence for this? Please show us how the numerical methodologies employed in the current crop of AOGCMs are materially different than NWP…
Here are some differential equations to get you started…
http://www.ccsm.ucar.edu/models/atm-cam/docs/description/
What strikes me most is that only a few of the vast AMS membership responded to the survery. I did not. We, as AMS members (myself included) have been downright lazy for far too long. We’ve let our organization be hijacked to the point that it no longer represents what the majority of members believe. That is going to have to change (and it is!) if this thing is to be turned around. Listen up AMS Members: stop standing on the sidelines! Let your voices be heard. Demand open and honest debate on climate change. Say what all true scientists should say everytime research is opined as fact: “PROVE IT!” Ask for a vote of the membership!
Mark Johnson
Meteorologist
AMS CBM
Scott A. Mandia. (12:06:28)
1.So we can include the world renowned Meteorologist Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT in your group of “Meteorologists that are researchers or academics”. If so he’s is probably the worlds most preeminent skeptic.
2. I’m guessing it was the exposing and subsequent removal of the fraud MBH(98) “Hockey Stick” between the TAR and AR4 that “convinced” you? Or perhaps it is the bizarre fact that it is the bureaucrats and not the scientists who (re)write the final report after the scientific draft is finished.
3. The IPCC does not claim that their models produce climate predictions but rather climate projections. The IPCC does not claim any predictive power for their models except to say that the results are possible future scenarios. But, hey, it’s the future anything is possible.
“Consensus is not Science”
-Michael Crichton [RIP]
Russ R. (07:25:20) :
I am a little shocked that they can keep this charade going.
I think they associate pollution with co2 to keep global warming going. They show steam coming out of smoke stacks and then say co2 (really meaning pollution) is damaging the world and ultimately making the world heat up.
So much effort by ‘skeptics’ is being put in to showing co2 is not causing catastrophes to come to the world. It is doing some good. But more effort should be put in to showing people that pollution is not doing as much damage as we are being told it is. Then I think the guilt and fears about pollution would bring a quickler end to the manmade-global-warming-disaster movement.
There is also the labeling of people that are ‘skeptics’ that if they don’t care about global warming then that means they don’t care about pollution. Which is another unfair attack on people like you and me.
I see someone says we shouldn’t look at what happens over a one month period.
So let’s look at what has happened since 1998. Is this same person up for that time scale?
Or much better yet, let’s go back 1000 years to when Vikings lived in a lush grenn land called Greenland. They lived there because they could make money from trade. There was plenty of food from the crops they grew and fish from the rivers that are now frozen. Also It was beautiful weather in the summer!
These would be better time scales I’m sure.
Brnn8r (14:47:21) You mentioned that the IPCC does not claim that their models produce climate predictions but rather climate projections. Spot the difference ?
Prediction:
Foretelling of a future event. Predictions are probabilistic estimates of future occurrences based upon many different estimation methods, including past patterns of occurrence and statistical projections of current data.
Projection:
A prediction or an estimate of something in the future,based on current data and trends.
Nuttin’ much in it is their?, only an attempt by the IPCC to obfuscate the issue and attempt to muddy rather than clarify to achieve a political end.
And Scott Mandia (12:06:28) ” It is only after the IPCC (2001) and especially the IPCC (2007) reports that I am now convinced of AGW”
Hang around here long enough and you not be ‘convinced’ of anything..Question, always question, nothing is as it seems and that to me is the excitement of Climate science, it may trend but never convince, there is always new data tomorrow.
Interesting. Some folks seem to feel the UNPROVEN science of
predicting weather patterns and trends 10, 20, 40, 60 or even 100
years out is more reliable than current routine meterology.
The longest term meterologists (those with 20+ years on the job)
in our area of Ohio seem to believe that computer projections which rely on speculative or opportunistic proxy interpretations are on par
with wooley bear caterpillar colors or “reading” various viscera and
entrails to see the future.
To date, the entrails, wooley bears, and computer climate projections all seem to have roughly the same descriptive success rate when compared to the plodding day to day meteorlogical
process of recorded observation and interpolation.
Weather may not be climate.
Climate is weather.
So Meteorologists aren’t climatologists. They just don’t get it… blah, blah, blah. Truly amazing. Its the same script, only in a nicer package: Ignore the science; “Attack” the dissenters as misinformed or evil; Repeat the mantra.
Still the REAL problems have yet to be addressed…GIGANTIC HOLES IN THE REASEARCH FINDINGS.
*So, lets believe the climatologist with a bent Hockey Stick and not the geologist who broke it!
*Lets believe the climatologists with 10 cherry picked trees in Yamal without questioning the flawed methodology behind it.
*Lets believe the NASA GISS temperature curve and not the brave TV Meteorologist who exposed a warm bias at most of the US climate stations.
*Lets believe the 23 UN climate models and ignore what is actually happening.
*Lets believe the climatologists that insist the arctic is warmer and not question their use of spliced station data sets.
*Lets believe the 5 studies that the UN IPCC bases its ’07 thesis on and not the hundreds of others that dispute the findings.
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” – Wizard of OZ.
Yes, climate science is different from meteorology where AGW is concerned: credibility!
Scott A. Mandia (12:06:28) :
the link to Doran’s paper is broken. The paper can be found at http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
Smokey (12:41:25) :
“…there are certainly push polls bought by foundations that are designed to give that false impression.” It’s not a “push poll” but an academic paper. I suspect since you didn’t note the broken link, you didn’t actually look at it before falsely describing it.
BTW, Doran himself has published research, “Antarctic climate cooling and terrestrial ecosystem response” in Nature- “Although previous reports suggest slight recent continental warming [9,10], our spatial analysis of Antarctic meteorological data demonstrates a net cooling on the Antarctic continent between 1966 and 2000, particularly during summer and autumn.”