And now the weather …
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There is a nice piece in this week's New York Times about weather presenters. It highlights the role they could play in rising awareness for climate change. In September, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a United Nations agency based in Geneva, had called upon television weather presenters to become climate emissaries. As Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the WMO, World Meteorological Organization, said in his opening statement at the World Climate Broadcasts Forum this September:
As weather broadcasters, you are situated at the intersections between science and society. You have established yourselves as emissaries of weather information to the public. (...) The need for and use of climate information is not yet as mainstream. Seasonal climate predictions are available in many locations to inform people about the weather conditions for weeks to three months out, for example to predict higher or lower temperature or rainfall amounts than the average for the season. But many people do not recognize these outlooks as climate information. Moreover, although these seasonal predictions are essential for planning in the agricultural, water and energy sectors, for instance, they are not widely accepted as decision-making tools.(... )Now that the scientific community is striving to mainstream climate information, it is a natural next step for you to become emissaries of climate information.
Up to now, we have been told that weather is one thing and climate something else. That weather is the state of the atmosphere at a short period of time in a particular place, while climate is the term for average conditions in a place over a long time. And that therefore for example an increase in freak weather events means nothing and is no prove for climate change. Is this going to change? It will be interesting to watch whether weather presenters will be following the suggestions of the WMO. As for now, at least many American presenters seem not convinced.
Why that should be so, nobody seems to know. But Houston-based environmental journalist Bill Dawson wrote an interesting article on the issue - and it seems that to some extent it has to do with good old rivalry. Among others, he quotes senior meteorology lecturer Paul Knight from Penn State University who believes that
on one side, there seems to be a disdain in the orthodox scientific research community for those who are not smart enough to get a Ph.D. or do research, and instead go into the fluff of television and just forecast the weather. On the other side, there’s a certain amount of disdain from television meteorologists who are predicting the weather for those who pontificate about what their [climate] models show.
Meanwhile, some of their colleagues might not be allowed to link climate and weather. Continues the New York Times:
In Italy, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has voiced skepticism about the need for action on the climate, and where he owns or indirectly controls the majority of television stations, weather professionals often avoid talking about the climate for fear of losing their jobs, said Luca Mercalli, the president of the Italian Meteorological Society and a meteorologist for Rai 3.
Ah, Berlusconi. Here is another story. But for now, watch your weather men.
Miguel Riopa / AFP
BTW, and ceterum censeo: The Met Office, NERC and the Royal Society, three respected British research institutions, have just published a joint statement that should remind us about what's at stake (and maybe draw the connection between weather and climate - and our responsibility for it ourselves):
The 2007 IPCC Assessment, the most comprehensive and respected analysis of climate change to date, states clearly that without substantial global reductions of greenhouse gas emissions we can likely expect a world of increasing droughts, floods and species loss, of rising seas and displaced human populations. However even since the 2007 IPCC Assessment the evidence for dangerous, long-term and potentially irreversible climate change has strengthened. (...) Without co-ordinated international action on greenhouse gas emissions, the impacts on climate and civilisation could be severe.
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