Weathercasters question warming orthodoxy.

Recently the National Environmental Education Foundation, a political entity created by Congress to “educate” the public about the environmental point of view. And to do so they wish to work with “a network of professionals, weathercasters, land managers and teachers.” The problem with their network appears to be that weathercasters are not very reliable when it comes to the warming scare.

They recently commission a study of the opinion of weathercasters and the results were published in the October issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. And the results are not favorable to the warming orthodoxy.

The survey was sent to about 800 broadcast meteorologists and the hoped-for response was 100. But they actually surpassed that with 121 responses.

Most of the meteorologists surveyed say they don’t speak about climate issues on the air very much. But many make public appearances where they do speak about climate issues. And many of these individuals have blogs and newspaper columns “where individual weathercasters freely express their opinions.” (p. 1459)

Here is what the survey found.

Most meteorologists say that it is appropriate for them to discuss climate change on-air or online. Only small minorities oppose discussing the topic. An overwhelming majority (80%) say that they have a responsibility to be aware of what the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which would indicate that a good number of them do know what the IPCC says. But when it comes to agreeing with the IPCC’s claim that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” only 43% agree. Another 21% are neutral on the matter and 34% disagree with the premise. (p. 1461)

But whether or not there is warming is only part of the warming thesis. For political purposes the prime question is whether humans are to blame for the warming or not. They were asked if they agreed that, “Most of the warming since 1950 is very likely human-induced.” Only 8% of meteorologists strongly agreed with the claim and 16% agreed. But 26% of the meteorologists said they “strongly disagreed” with this claim and another 24 % said they disagreed. Twice as many meteorologists dispute the theory that humans have caused global warming than agree with it. (p. 1461)

Levels of scepticism are even higher when it comes to the models used to predict global warming. Asked how strongly they agreed, or disagreed, with whether, “global climate models are reliable in their projections of a warming for the planet,” only 16% agreed, and only 3% strongly agreed. But 37% disagreed and another 25% strongly disagreed. (p. 1463)

Asked if global climate models are reliable in predicting precipitation and drought only 18% agreed, and 1% strongly agreed. But 36% disagreed and another 16% strongly disagreed. Asked out rightly if they thought global warming was “a scam,” 29% said they agreed or agreed strongly with the claim. Of course the organization set up the politicians in Washington is now looking at how to create “lesson plans” to convince meteorologists to take the approved position on the issue. (p. 1463)