22 June 2016

New Slide Presentation on Climate Change Dispels Common Myths

Posted by Dan Satterfield

A sample of the new science based slide set on climate change now available for free.

A sample of the new science based slide set on climate change now available for free.

 

My Friend Meterologist Paul Gross CBM CCM sharing science with his viewers on WDIV-TV in Detroit.

My Friend Meteorologist Paul Gross CBM-CCM sharing science with his viewers on WDIV-TV in Detroit.

My friend Paul Gross (at WDIV in Detroit) is the past chair of the AMS Committee on Station Science (I’m currently the chair), and he had a fantastic idea early this year that is now a reality. The idea was to develop a set of slides for broadcast meteorologists (and even teachers) that they could use to teach climate change and dispel the many myths that are constantly floating around. Paul is always having one of those ideas that make you say ‘why didn’t I think of this!’, and everyone on our committee thought it was something that we should do right away.

Thanks to the staff at Climate Central in Princeton, (and their graphics folks and scientists who helped put together the slides) it was put together in just a few months. The presentation is all based on published peer-reviewed science, and we then ran them by folks at the AMS to double-check. Paul and Climate Central deserve the credit for doing almost all the work, but a bunch of us submitted ideas/slides etc.

A flash drive with the slides was given out at the AMS Broadcast Meteorology Conference in Austin last week, and they are free to download for anyone HERE. An overview of the presentation with bibliography is also available. I personally think this one of the best things our committee has ever done! Synoptic meteorologists (who forecast the weather a few days out) are familiar with climate science, but this is a separate specialty in atmospheric science, so this is a badly needed resource, and I know many Earth science teachers have trouble separating fact from the political noise, when looking for resources for their classroom. 

Now you have it.

If there are any teachers out there that have questions about something in the slide set, email me, and if I can’t answer it, I know several top experts that most assuredly can. I imagine this will be something that NOAA forecasters who do community talks will also want to grab. Again these are FREE.

Plans are underway to develop a slide show for elementary students as well!