Weathercasters Grapple With Climate Change

Two weeks ago, the White House turned to eight TV meteorologists  to help deliver its message about climate change, inviting the group to interview President Obama about the government’s latest report on the subject.

By all accounts, the day was pretty sweet for the weathercasters, a mix of local and network personalities, including NBC’s Al Roker. They met with the administration’s top scientists, then got about three minutes of one-to-one time with Obama on the White House lawn.

“It was amazing,” says WBBM Chicago meteorologist Megan Glaros, who also appears on CBS This Morning. “As a meteorologist, you don’t often think about going to interview the president.”

But whether the administration reached out to the right people to cover the highly charged issue depends on whom you ask.  Even the weathercasters who went to the White House are not sure covering climate change should be part of their jobs.

“I wish climatologists were doing this and not me. They know their stuff,” says Bill Martin, chief meteorologist at KTVU, the Cox-owned Fox affiliate in San Francisco (DMA 6).

“I am not super comfortable talking about climate change. I am super comfortable talking weather,” says Martin, who was caught so off-guard by the administration’s invite that he didn’t even bother returning the initial calls, figuring they were pranks.

But WBOC Salisbury, Md., Chief Meteorologist Dan Satterfield, who chairs the American Meteorological Society’s station scientist committee, says the Obama administration made a smart move in trying to work through weathercasters.

“The White House recognizes that among the most visible science communicators in the U.S. are weathercasters,” Satterfield says. “And in this case, their message was based not only in policy, but in a very well done report with good science.”

Three other meteorologists who went to Washington — WLTX Columbia, S.C.’s Jim Gandy, KING Seattle’s Jeff Renner and WTVJ Miami’s John Morales — agree with Satterfield.

Gandy says he produces climate change-related stories, as well as blogs about the issue, about once a week, part of his effort to eradicate “scientific illiteracy.”

He says reporting the science of global warming — not the policy or politics associated with it — is incumbent on TV meteorologists, particularly as the problems associated with the phenomenon mount.

So is putting the issue in “understandable pieces” that resonate with viewers, he says. Recent stories, for instance, looked at rising sea levels, which in time could put historic Charleston under water. Another explained how carbon emissions cause poison ivy to grow faster and be more toxic.

“This is not a political thing,” Gandy says. “It’s a complicated picture and I am trying to clarify it for our viewers. People need to be informed so they can make good decisions.”

KING’s Renner says that he regularly discusses climate change on-air, which includes answering viewers’ questions on topics like polar ice caps melting. He also produces two half-hour specials a year.

“I think it’s fairly important given my position,” he says. But Renner sticks to covering only the science of the subject. “To become involved as an advocate would be contrary to what I need to be in terms of my work at the station and my larger work as a meteorologist,” he says.

WTVJ’s John Morales says he sees growing opportunities for broadcasters to cover climate-related topics. “I have strived to communicate the state of the science of climate change over the years, though opportunities have been infrequent on television since my daily duty is to provide a weather forecast and not a long-range climate prediction. The emergence of social media has allowed me to frequently post on findings and trends regarding global warming and climate change,” Morales adds.

The administration is not the only eco-advocate trying to rally weathercasters to report on climate change.

Ed Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication, for instance, is encouraging weathercasters to cover climate change because of their “extraordinary potential to be effective” in educating the public.

“They are known, they are trusted and they are phenomenally good educators,” Maibach says. “Their day job is literally to take information, make it simple, make it understandable and make it fun.”

Maibach says many weathercasters avoid climate change because they don’t feel qualified to discuss it and they “aren’t satisfied with the professional development opportunities available to them.”

But there is much they can do, Maibach says.  Use of the center’s “Climate Matters” materials — including broadcast-ready graphics and talking points — by WLTX and other stations in Washington, Richmond and Roanoke, Va., proves the point. Research shows the reports furthered the public’s education and interest in the issue, he says.

That  climate change has become politically charged discourages some weathercasters. Many Americans and their representatives in government either doubt climate change or doubt human activity is the cause of it. Consequently, they don’t believe in the need for remedial action.

A 2011 Center for Climate Change study showed about 80% of TV meteorologists believed climate change was occurring, but less than 20% believed human activity is the primary cause.

Maibach says he doesn’t think the controversy surrounding climate change should affect coverage.

“That weathercasters aren’t convinced that it is human caused doesn’t matter,” he says. “They are convinced that climate change is making the weather worse in their communities and it just makes sense for them to educate their viewers.”

“Unfortunately, the science became political, and so there is a hesitancy,” says Bernadette Woods Placky, a former TV meteorologist who now works with the New Jersey-based Climate Central, another group that is trying to get the word out on climate change.

Climate Central provides resources, training and information to 130 meteorologists who cover global warming. The group recently held a webinar explaining how the recent rash of tornados was tied to climate change. The organization also offers TV stations climate-related stories that they can localize.

“These are very educated scientists who want to speak knowledgably about something,” she says. “There is a political stigma, and so many layers to this story; they want to make sure they are accurate or say the right thing.”

Placky says that while some weather stories have closer ties to global warming than others, the two fields are indisputably related, she says. “Climate is weather on a long-term scale,” she says. “It’s the same basic science just looked at from a different angle.”

WBOC’s Satterfield believes weathercast can talk about climate change without being drawn too deeply into the politics. “The overall general answer is we have a problem and it’s a big problem,” he says. “What we do about it is a political question. That’s something news should cover.”

With climate change “a reality on the ground now,” Maibach says he doesn’t see broadcast meteorologists being able to avoid covering the issue much longer. “I think that eventually it will be expected of them,” he says.

For others, however, their job still boils down to letting viewers know whether they, say, should take an umbrella to work.

WBBM’s Glaros says her day at the White House “probably gave me a better awareness of what we may be seeing in the future, and that may come up in my forecasts from here on out. But my job is to basically tell viewers what’s going to happen on a given day.”

Read other Air Check columns here. You can send suggestions for future Air Checks to Diana Marszalek at [email protected].