The Tribune News Service article, “AI is fast-tracking climate research,” embraces a misleading central premise. Although AI can speed up certain weather data processing tasks, it is unable to magically make long-term climate forecasts more accurate. The piece blurs the line between short-term weather model gains and the far more uncertain, decades-scale climate projections — a fundamental error that misleads both policymakers and the public.
The article quotes AZTI marine biologist Ángel Borja saying, “It will allow us to process data and get results much faster, so people that make decisions can act faster, too.” This might be true for fisheries management or local ocean data sets, but when applied to climate, speed does not equal accuracy. Acting “faster” on flawed or incomplete climate projections risks imposing and enshrining harmful and costly policies for decades, based on noise or computer model errors, not an accurate signal.
Here is a breakdown of each of the claims in the article.
Claim: “Some AI-powered models are already outperforming conventional forecasting systems.”
Yes — but that’s in weather forecasting, which operates on hours-to-weeks timescales. Even Microsoft’s Aurora and Google DeepMind’s GraphCast, cited in the story, focus on short-term atmospheric prediction. This has almost nothing to do with the 30-year climate averages that define climate science. See Climate at a Glance: Climate Model Fallibility.
Claim: “AI models… can enable climate scientists to explore hundreds of times more scenarios than they can today.”
Quantity isn’t quality. Exploring “hundreds” of flawed scenarios faster doesn’t change the fact that climate models — AI or not — still have massive uncertainty ranges and are built upon unverified assumptions. Observations show CMIP6 climate models overstate warming trends by nearly double actual measurements as told in Climate Models vs. Measured Data. If your inputs and physics are wrong, multiplying the number of runs just multiplies the wrongness.
Claim: “High-quality weather information is the first step to setting warning systems.”
True, for short-term weather events — but irrelevant to long-term accurate forecasts of changes in a regions climate. Weather quality doesn’t fix deep uncertainties in equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), which still ranges from 0.8°C to almost 6°C by 2100. Nor does it solve the known ±4 Watts per square meter radiative cloud forcing error — more than 4,000 times the estimated signal from a year’s worth of CO₂ emissions according to the Hoover Institution.
Claim: “AI is set to turbocharge what the center can offer policymakers… allowing them to make more-informed decisions.”
This is the most dangerous overreach. Climate is by definition a 30-year statistical average. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) defines climate as “…the average weather conditions for a particular location and over a long period of time. “Fast-tracking” such projections is meaningless — the data horizon can’t be shortened without destroying the definition of climate itself. Worse, rushing policy on the back of still-uncertain models risks trillion-dollar mistakes.
Tribune News Service: please stop confusing flash with substance. AI is not a magical oracle of climate truth — it’s a faster, sometimes cheaper way to crunch the same flawed models that have consistently overshot observed warming. Until climate models can reconcile with reality, narrow their error bars, resolve cloud physics, and stop producing 200% exaggerations of observed warming, your framing of AI as a “climate game-changer” is not journalism — it’s marketing copy. And marketing copy dressed as science is worse than ignorance; it’s an invitation to policy disaster.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
Originally posted at ClimateREALISM
Every time that I have talked to a journalist, I am amazed at their appalling lack of knowledge of the subject which they have just written an article on. It looks as if the Tribune News Service demonstrates this beautifully.
And they have no excuse. Sure, they can’t be highly knowledgeable on all the topics they write on but with the internet, they could be reasonably knowledgeable after several hours of dedicated research. If they aren’t given enough time by the boss, they should quit that job and look for a new outfit that will give them the time. They should at least be able to grasp the major issues and differences of opinion. And, over time they should be very knowledgeable on many topics and know how to do fast research.
Just curious, how often do you talk to journalists?
I used to talk to journalists on a regular basis, usually because of a terrible article which they had written on a science subject. I tried to encourage them to do more research on the subject before they published the article. The most common response was that they had no time to do proper research and they had deadlines to meet. The problem is that the vast majority of journalists do not come from a scientific background and they have no idea what they are talking about and have no inclination to learn any science. I gradually came to realise that journalists were a waste of my time. The appalling thing is that the general public gets its knowledge on scientific matters from these journalists.
The appalling thing is that the general public gets its
knowledge on scientific matters from these journalists.
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Yes indeed, Dr. Stephen Schneider’s infamous quote
We have to offer up scary scenarios…
each of us has to decide the right balance
between being effective and being honest.
is taken to heart by journalists.
Much of the climate alarmism propaganda “journalism” is generated and distributed by an outfit called “Covering Climate Now”.
Media outlets all around the world are paying subscriptions to https://coveringclimatenow.org/ for boilerplate ooga-booga content that sells “news” stories.
As we’ve all seen, climate alarmism is THE most-grifted scam that’s ever been foisted on the human race.
Sooo many ways to squeeze a buck out of it.
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“It will allow us to process data and get propaganda much faster
Is there really any reason to think that AI could help process data and get results faster that are MORE correct?
Not while AI is just doing a deeper and faster scrape of what’s already on Wikipedia about climate stuff 🙁
The Tribune news syndicate began in Chicago with their claim to fame being the comic strip “The Gumps.” Wiki has a list of current and discontinued strips. Li’l Abner, Little Orphan Annie, and Brenda Starr are the few that I remember. Being a syndicate is not the same as being a news developer.
This article is from Bloomberg News using info from a biologist in the Basque Country; AZTI marine. Their emphasis is on the fishing and agri-food sectors. The agency is much in cahoots with the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
They may produce some useful reports.
In the Telegraph today… https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/08/17/chatgpt-is-driving-people-mad/
If we let AI at the forcasting, how long before gullible people are evacuated en mass from somewhere because of an AI hallucination?
Relevant Story Tip:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/13/spain-wildfires-climate-crisis-heatwave
> Speaking on Wednesday morning, as firefighters in Spain, Greece and other Mediterranean countries continued to battle dozens of blazes, Sara Aagesen said the 14 wildfires still burning across seven Spanish regions were further proof of the country’s particular vulnerability to global heating.
“The 14 wildfires still burning across seven Spanish regions were further proof of the country’s particular vulnerability to global heating.”
Actually, the wildfires in Spain were further proof of the country’s particular vulnerability to arsonists.
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/spain-arrests-alleged-arsonist-linked-wildfire-second-firefighter-dies-2025-08-14/
Very nice Anthony.