20 February 2013
Communicating Climate Change In A Responsible Way
Posted by Dan Satterfield
My friends Ed Maibach at George Mason University, and Meteorologist Jim Gandy in South Carolina were featured on NPR’s Morning Edition on Tuesday. Dr. Maibach has been researching climate change communication for several years now, (Full disclosure, I was on an advisory committee for a couple of his studies.) and it’s well worth a listen.
A lot of on air meteorologists are downright afraid to mention climate change on air because they will often get angry emails from viewers (who believe it to be a hoax). On the other hand, there have been some downright silly statements from on air weathercasters (even a few with a significant science background), that have been frankly embarrassing to those of us who care about giving accurate science on air. A group called forecast the facts has begun to publicize some of the more ridiculous comments made by on air weathercasters. The AMS has also received complaints because some of those with AMS (or CBM) seals have said some things which are rather indefensible scientifically.
Bud Ward (at the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media) pointed out that the NPR report left hanging an old myth. That misconception is that we cannot rely on weather model forecasts of a hundred years into the future, when they cannot get the weather next week right. I’ve written before about this here and here.
In short, we use weather models to forecast weather and climate models to forecast climate. The great thing about climate models is you can test them by starting in the past and running them up to the present.Take a look at the image below and you will see just how well the models can do. They only successfully recreate the real world temperatures over the last century when the increasing greenhouse gases are factored in. These same models indicate significant warming over the coming decades, if greenhouse gas levels rise as predicted (They are rising faster than predicted in general by the way).
Jim Gandy got it spot on when he said that you can no longer ignore climate change when discussing the weather. What we do about the problem is a difficult political question, but accurately reporting the science is the right thing to do. Frankly, ignoring it because of worry about critical feedback from viewers seems to me a bit unethical journalistically.
“What we do about the problem is a difficult political question, but accurately reporting the science is the right thing to do. ”
Exactly, that’s why you should always mention that global temperature measurements only started in 1979 with satellites. The graphs you provided above show measurements all the way back 120 years before that time, implying that they were global and highly accurate (we both know they were neither).
Just helping you out with your climate communications.
cheers
I suggest some back reading to understand that the concept and determination of a global temperature dates well before the satellite era. Start here: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm#contents
Cheers!
There are at least 5 independent reconstructions of the temperature record over the last 150 years and they all are very close to each other. If you think they got it wrong, you should write it up and submit it to a journal. So far no one has. The graphic I used a gray bar that indicated the statistical uncertainties in the past record and the climate modeling tracks very close to it.
Bob is correct that a good place to get the science and not the politics is from Spencer Weart’s Discovery of Global Warming. I recc. it highly.
Dan
Of course, there were probably even more temperature reconstructions than that over the last 150 years, and I would hope they all agree with each other closely. That’s wasn’t my point, my point is that temp data earlier than 1979 is not global in scope, and data back into the 19th century is neither global nor accurate.
This post is about communicating climate change in a responsible way, if you don’t mention that temp data before 1979 are not global, it gives the impression that 100 year old data is just as good as today’s. And that’s not communicating climate change in a responsible way, its mildly misleading in my opinion.
Just helping you out.
cheers
Again, you are totally incorrect here. The global data is good enough to go back to the 1880’s as has been shown numerous times in numerous papers. No one is saying that 100 year old data is as good as todays but the uncertainties in that data are clearly shown on the graphs in the post. If you have a cite that shows what I said is incorrect, please let me know.
Dan
Dan,
Dealing with the decreasing but entrenched number of deniers is difficult. So, when I don’t understand how people act against their own self-interests, I remember the wise words of Mom: “Never forget that 50% of the population has below average intelligence”. Hope that helps.
Communicating in rapid fire demonstrations and explanations doesn’t read or heard. The deniers maybe just unable to hear or see the talk or the data sets.
All to quick usually because the time spot for a complicated matter like the difference between climate and weather needs a bit of clear description with explanation. Head line news crisis ridden “DID YOU KNOW!” is an obstacle to reporting – climate, ecological matters. Explanations take a bit of explaining. See the headlines of a long article in the media (commerecial press) and you understand why the “reports” are so shallow and disconcerting. Plus… just for this moment all the carbon club disinformation makes even the evidence confusing. Creationist still abound!
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