Journeyman Pictures has created a little 10-minute documentary that describes the perceived disconnect between the beliefs of on-air meteorologists and climatologists. Of specific note are the comments of MIT professor Dr. Kerry Emanuel who sets up the premise of the question (and the documentary as a whole) and swings away (just after 5-minute mark):
PROFESSOR KERRY EMANUEL, CLIMATE SCIENTIST: Why would anybody ask weather forecasters about their opinion on climate? I think it is because there is a hope that I don’t think is justified that ordinary people will confuse weather forecasters with climate scientists.
Narrator: Professor Kerry Emanuel is disparaging about what he perceives to be a lack of knowledge amongst many meteorologists.
PROFESSOR KERRY EMANUEL: Weather forecasters are in a unique position. I mean if they actually did study the problem, if they actually took the time to really understand it rather than just go to the blogosphere to get their favourite views and rebroadcast them, then I think they could do a lot of good in the world and I think there are some who are doing that to be fair.
Also featured is wrestler and full-time Accuweather soothsayer and forecaster Joe Bastardi who is a noted climate change skeptic. Regardless, if you are reading this, you are not doing yourself or the world any good coming to the blogosphere and learning about climate. Move along.
Embedding disabled by the makers of the documentary (only 302 views through midnight 08/24). Here’s the Youtube link.
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Notice how jthomas uses an argument of authority yet cannot expand on anything scientific?
RichieP says:
August 24, 2010 at 4:01 am
“Um, it’s not a Brit accent mate, it’s very Ozzie. I think you have the same kind of trouble as we have distinguishing between US and Canadian accents!”
I have the same problem distinguishing among the various accents in the English-speaking countries. Australia is especially baffling. A relatively small proportion of Aussies speak with a ‘broad’ accent, like Crocodile Dundee. Most Aussies speak with a general accent, which to my American ear, sounds like 90% Midwestern American English and 10% Paul Hogan. And there are a few Aussies whose English sounds more British.
Anyway, I’ve devised a test to distinguish between this last category of Aussie and a true Brit. If you’re killing time in an airport while waiting for your flight, and you eavesdrop on a conversation, in which one of the participants sounds sort of British, walk right up to the bloke, and say, “My, what a charming Irish accent you have!” If you’re still standing 10 seconds later, he’s an Aussie!
Just a note: Kerry Emanuel’s most famous and cited papers have little if anything to do with climate change and climate science, but convection, tropical cyclones, and dynamics. He is remarkably insightful on a range of issues, and is clearly worth listening to when it comes to issues of climate science — in a similar way as Judy Curry.
The appeals to authority must stop though, in the climate science field. Just because you have not spent your entire career looking at tree rings and ice cores does not mean you are ineligible to speak about issues which transect both meteorology and climatology, for example. Experts with political motives and streaks of advocacy have downplayed the uncertainties in their fields since time immemorial.
jthomas: August 24, 2010 at 9:29 am
Latitude wrote:
“You should not assume that “actual climate scientists” do not review and post here.
You just made the same fatal mistake that you are accusing others of doing.
And the same snotty elitist mistake that Dr. Emanuel made.”
Actual climate scientists know that meteorologists are not climate scientists. Emanuel knows that as well. He made no such “elitist comment”; that strawman is fully transparent.
The “elitist comment” Latitude was referring to was “…if they actually took the time to really understand it rather than just go to the blogosphere to get their favourite views and rebroadcast them,” with reference to the fact that both Professor Emanuel and you assume that “real climate scientists” don’t post (or comment) in the blogosphere.
Nice attempt at a distraction, though.
Climate science, eh? Does such a subject even exist at university? In that case some notable “climate” scientists have missed out: Hansen (atronomy); Jones (ecology); Schmidt (math).
On the other hand, it wouldn’t surprise me too much if, these days, such degree courses did in fact exist.
Larry Fields: August 24, 2010 at 12:01 pm
If you’re still standing 10 seconds later, he’s an Aussie!
Thanks for that, Larry.
As if my nose hasn’t taken anywhere near enough damage over the last forty years…
My gob was well and truly smacked at Kerry Emanuel’s gaffe about decarbonising fossil fuels. Being charitable I’ll assume that he was referring to so called carbon capture technologies. What really shocked me is that he gave no indication of being aware that he’d said something stupid. The process of removing carbon from hydrocarbons is well understood and documented, the technical term is combustion, the result is the very trace gas that Emanuel considers to be so damaging to the environment.
Reading through some of his papers I notice that they are not easy to read. He uses jargon and long words when short words would do. Such language raises a red flag as it often indicates that the author doesn’t really understand their subject matter. If Emanuel really was the expert on climate change he claims to be he would have noticed his gaffe and acknowleged it.
co2fan says:
August 23, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Towards the end K. Emanual says:
“..we’ll figure out how to take carbon out of fossil fuels”
Chemistry must not have been one of his strong subjects, among others.
I find it very easy to take carbon out of fossil fuels: I set fire to it, and up the chimney it goes.
Have I discovered something new?
co2fan says:
August 23, 2010 at 11:30 pm
“Towards the end K. Emanual says:
‘..we’ll figure out how to take carbon out of fossil fuels’
Chemistry must not have been one of his strong subjects, among others.”
Kerry is not smart enough to be wrong about everything. I remember reading that some fuel cells in the pipeline are supposed to oxidize the hydrogen in hydrocarbons, and leave the carbon behind. This strikes me as being wasteful, but not impossible.
On the other hand, if we put the leftover carbon in storage, we could use it to generate airborne soot from *unscrubbed* conventional power plants during the next major glacial advance. After a recent snowfall, the ‘fresh’ soot on top of the new snow would increase local albedo and hasten melting when the sun came out. If the placement is correct, that would preserve a narrow belt of farmland in what would otherwise be the near-terminal zones of the continental glaciers. And a few million climate refugees would be saved from starvation. I hope that they enjoy oats and rye. Of course, we could do the same thing with coal. Just sayin…
adamskirving says:
August 24, 2010 at 12:56 pm
“My gob was well and truly smacked at Kerry Emanuel’s gaffe about decarbonising fossil fuels. [….]”
Just like Dr. h.c. Albert Gore’s knowledge about subterranean temperatures.
Their idiots, that’s all. The only astounding thing is that they’re so successful.
Jimbo says:
Look, it’s not that one is better and the other worse. It is just that they have different knowledge and skill sets. Asking a meteorologist to do climate science without any particular training would probably get you a similar result to asking a climate scientist to forecast tomorrow’s weather. Both have some understanding of how the atmosphere works but are coming at it from very different directions.
Likewise, although I teach electricity and magnetism, I would be helpless (and would quickly electrocute myself) if I was thrown onto a line crew by the local utility company to repair damaged power-lines. On the other hand, I don’t think those guys on the line crew would do very well at explaining the concepts of E&M to students in an introductory physics class.
There is an additional complicating factor in the case of meteorology in that (at least in my impression), TV weathermen run the gamut from very well-trained forecast meteorologists to folks who are basically newscasters or “talking heads”. The fact that the National Weather Service exists means that they can pretty much run the gamut from completely doing their own forecasting to just basically using the NWS product.
I would agree with Joel that climate scientists don’t understand meteorology. They also don’t expertly understand several other scientific fields that are needed for anyone to claim to be a REAL climate scientist. One of those happens to be computer science. You can see it in the way most climate scientists naively consider models to actually represent something tangible. Having worked intimately with computers for many years, I’m pretty sure I know more about computers than almost any of them.
Of course, this also applies to statistics, biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, oceanography, geology and a whole host of others fields that apply directly to climate. By default, climate scientists are students of these fields and masters of at most one or two. This is why the arrogance is so evident. When you don’t really know your field in depth, you are forced to fake it. It’s real obvious to people who have seen it in the past.
Meteorologists are judged on their merits within minutes after they say something. Climatologists are NOT taken seriously until 50 years after they have passed on to the great hereafter, but it’s OK to throw rotten fruit and veggies at them any time before hand.
Joel Shore says:
August 24, 2010 at 4:37 pm
[snipped some very good comments from you to address the following]
“There is an additional complicating factor in the case of meteorology in that (at least in my impression), TV weathermen run the gamut from very well-trained forecast meteorologists to folks who are basically newscasters or “talking heads”. The fact that the National Weather Service exists means that they can pretty much run the gamut from completely doing their own forecasting to just basically using the NWS product.”
Yup, there are “weather babes (and dudes)” whose job it is to attract viewers as they happen to read the NWS forecast. I think that’s only the small market broadcasters, though. In such cases, Emanuel’s criticism is misplaced; it is useless to wish that such “weathermen” know anything about any topic because their role is to attract viewers and not have knowledge of any particular subject. They are not getting paid for their expertise in quantum mechanics.
However, right back at Emanuel, I can understand how a meteorologist can understand weather without understanding the global climate, but I can’t understand how a climatologist can understand climate (weather over time) without understanding weather.
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Does climate determine weather or does weather determine climate? It seems clear to me that they are a Gordian knot and so Emanuel should insist his colleagues follow his own prescription; learn a little something about weather.
jthomas says:
August 24, 2010 at 9:34 am
“I’m sure those who attack him would prefer that climate scientists “sit back and take it.” How dare they speak up!”
Believe it or not we actually have a bit of trade jargon for “sit back and take it” in the science “biz.” We call it, “peer review.”
If, per chance, your “bonafides” are in some field like , oooooh, say “railroad engineering” and your statistical methods are being “peer” reviewed by someone whose “bonafides” are as an “actuary” you might just want to not only “sit there and take it,” but so something we call “shut up and listen,” as well.
Despite this luscious contretemps regarding the spheres of knowledge under which the skillful representatives of the sciences of climate and weather operate, I wondered if the august American Meteorological Society, (whom it would be thought would speak for at least some of their members), had anything to say about the central subject of this discourse, nameably climate change.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, they do.
Climate change: An information statement of the American Meteorological Society
In light of recent weather events this annum, I found this part moderately intriguing: “Precipitation is expected to become more intense (i.e., precipitation rates and total precipitation in storms will increase), with implications for water resource management and flooding.”
Well, given that climate is NOT a 30 year average of weather, most “climate scientists” are actually just playing at being weathermen but doing it badly. If they wanted to look at 30,000 year averages, they could talk about climate, but then they run into the Geologists who know darned well that we’re in a very flat very stable range compared to geologic time scale events.
So on the one hand we have Geologists who say “Nothing at all unusual happening, except perhaps that it’s particularly pleasant and stable compared to the normal violent extremes” and on the other hand they have Meteorologists saying “But you are leaving out all the water cycle and convection and other good stuff in your 30 year weather model, and weather is highly variable anyway”.
So they must toss rocks at both sides to try and defend a very weak middle. The broken notions that the 30 year average of weather is climate (it isn’t – the Mediterranean Climate Zone has been such through the Roman Optimum and the Little Ice Age weather excursions, and it remains a Mediterranean Climate Zone today) and the notion that there is some golden constant that has persisted and from which man is driving us (it has never been a golden constant, it has always been change on both long and short time scales, and it does not need people to drive it.)
Faced with that, of course they want to disenfranchise Meteorologists and Geologists from discussing climate.
Ref – E.M.Smith says:
August 24, 2010 at 11:40 pm
” …they want to disenfranchise Meteorologists and Geologists…”
______________________
MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!
The way I see it, you don’t have to have any bonified credentials to be a Climatologist, just a mouth and a lot of funny ideas and some kid that can put together a computer graphic to prove your point (you really don’t even need data –just say it will be misused by the enemy and you don’t really even have to have anything on your hard drive, but lots of angry emails might be nice). Yhep! Cilmatology’s the way to go! It’s the “plastic” of the future for all you new “Graduates” –oh, look out for Mrs. Robinson, she’s a hand full.
Oakden Wolf: August 24, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Perhaps unsurprisingly, they [the American Meteorological Society] do.
Climate change: An information statement of the American Meteorological Society
In light of recent weather events this annum, I found this part moderately intriguing: “Precipitation is expected to become more intense (i.e., precipitation rates and total precipitation in storms will increase), with implications for water resource management and flooding.”
Even more unsurprising is this statement:
“Freezing levels are rising in elevation, rain occurs instead of snow at mid-elevations, spring maximum snowpack is decreasing, snowmelt occurs earlier, and the spring runoff that supplies over two-thirds of the western U.S. streamflow is reduced. ”
The statement you cited is from 2007, and is chock full of the usual AGW propaganda — e.g., “Once introduced in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide remains for at least a few hundred years and implies a lengthy guarantee of sustained future warming…” and “…decreases of stratospheric ozone have likely contributed to the recent contraction and intensification of the polar vortex around Antarctica, producing warming in the Antarctic Peninsula, the northern most peninsula that points toward South America, and cooling over Antarctica. ”
As far as weather predictions for this coming winter during this particular period of climate change goes, I like folks who will give specifics:
“What about snow/rain/ice?
“Near-normal amounts of precipitation are expected over the eastern third of the country, as well as over the Pacific Northwest and Northern Plains, while drier-than-normal conditions are forecast to occur over the Southwest and the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes.
“Only the Central and Southern Plains are expected to receive above-average amounts of precipitation.
“Blizzards?
“While three-quarters of the country is predicted to see near- or below average precipitation this winter, that doesn’t mean there won’t be any winter storms! On the contrary, significant snowfalls are forecast for parts of every zone. For the Middle Atlantic and Northeast States, for instance, we are predicting a major snowfall in mid-February; possibly even blizzard conditions for New England (indeed, even shovelry is not dead).”
They also predict it’s gonna be colder than a penguin’s posterior.
http://www.farmersalmanac.com/frigid-2010-weather-outlook/
As they say, “The proof is in the pudding.” There are actually no living climatologists worthy on the name.
WUWT regulars have seen a couple of threads on him already:
Kerry Emanuel and Richard Lindzen: the climatic odd couple
At http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/16/kerry-emanuel-and-richard-lindzen-the-climatic-odd-couple/
Lindzen on climate science advocacy and modeling – “at this point, the models seem to be failing”
At http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/19/lindzen-on-climate-science-advocacy-and-modeling-at-this-point-the-models-seem-to-be-failing/
jthomas, just because you and the good professor attend the same church does not validate your beliefs; you ask for the science, but your faith is not science-based as there is no scientific evidence that Man has warmed and is warming this planet. Many of us think Man may be having a small warming effect, but we have seen no falsifiable evidence that support your beliefs.
And being outraged that free men and women feel they can speak (and write) their mind on the internet betrays a rather nasty authoritarian mindset reminiscent of late and unlamented dictators in the globe’s recent history.
Pascvaks said on August 25, 2010 at 6:12 am:
*ahem*
Dr. Roy Spencer identifies himself as a climatologist. On his linked site, upper left corner, right under his name….
I think “-logist” is a bit of a letdown for a scientist to use. “-logist,” logistics, denotes practical (hands-on) work. Gynecologist, technologist, proctologist, meteorologist. Doesn’t indicate one is working with theory like “scientist” does. Perhaps you can convince Dr. Spencer to call himself something else?
🙂
There are obvious differences between meteorologists and climatologists. Meteorologists work short term and can have problems reaching agreement, while climatologists work long term and can easily reach consensus. Therefore it is obvious that climatologists as a group are more accurate, even if it does take longer for their predictions to bear fruit.
For example, less than 50% of meteorologists know what they shall have for supper on any given day next week, and few agree on the same main dishes. Meanwhile 92% of climatologists are certain that 150 years from now they’ll be dead.
😉
Some of you have touched upon it. And are close. Let’s think: Why do we have Astronomers and Astrologists? Hmmn? I think the Climatologists portend the advent of the “Climatonomer”! As I’ve claimed before: “GMIGO” (Grant Money In Garbage Out)!