Tahoe conference helps TV meteorologists make sense of climate chaos

As an earth system scientist Noah Diffenbaugh sifts through mountains of evidence to unravel complex processes behind disasters like droughts and hurricanes.

But when someone asks Diffenbaugh if he believes in global warming he turns to a simple scientific tool most people use every day.

“If you believe in thermometers you have no choice but to believe in global warming,” Diffenbaugh said during a presentation Tuesday in Stateline. “Global warming is a measurement, it is not a matter of politics, it is not a matter of belief.”

Diffenbaugh’s expertise on complex climate processes combined with his ability to explain them clearly is one reason organizers of Operation Sierra Storm invited him to speak at the conference of meteorologists at Harveys Lake Tahoe Resort and Casino.

The conference is comprised mostly of television meteorologists. It started more than 20 years ago as a way for tourism boosters to get Lake Tahoe on television screens throughout California by luring weather forecasters to the area.

In recent years, however, the event has evolved to include leading climate scientists and attracts meteorologists from local markets around the country and national cable networks.

It’s a chance for the meteorologists, who work eight to 10-hour days preparing forecasts and delivering them on newscasts, to learn the latest climate research and discuss ways to make it meaningful for viewers.

Unlike the researchers who are writing for academic journals and scientific publications, the meteorologists need to communicate complex and important issues such as global warming to a television audience that includes non-experts and even some viewers who are hostile to the very notion that human-induced climate change is a threat to communities.

“We are still a visual medium, it still at some point has to entertain people,” said Brandon Miller, a meteorologist and supervising weather producer for CNN International. “And that can be tough to do when it comes to climate change.”

Angela Fritz, deputy weather editor for the Washington Post and formerly a meteorologist on CNN, said the ability of televised meteorologists to accurately and effectively talk about climate change is critical for citizens to make sound choices about their communities.

“The only scientist most people see on a day to day basis is their local weather person,” Fritz said.

Meteorologists, Fritz said, are working against efforts that leverage widespread lack of scientific literacy within the public to undermine scientists’ efforts to arm people with sound knowledge.

“The worst thing that happened with climate change was that it became political,” Fritz said. “That was a very intentional move by people who knew what they were doing.”

For Diffenbaugh, who teaches at Stanford University and edits the journal Geophysical Research Letters, and other scientists who address the conference it is a chance to present their latest findings to meteorologists who can use it in broadcasts that potentially reach millions of viewers.

Much of Diffenbaugh’s research focuses on the relationship between climate change and specific weather catastrophes.

He talked about recent work to develop consistent, scientifically valid methods scientists to measure the influence of human-caused climate change on major weather events.

While much of Diffendaugh’s scientific writing is likely to go over the heads of people in a general audience, his work has generated new insight into weather phenomena that affect people every day.

For example, Diffendaugh researched the relationship between climate change and droughts in California.

He showed that drought was more common in the past 20 years than it had been in the first 100 years of record keeping. Yet precipitation in California hasn’t changed much.

“There hasn’t been any statistically significant long-term trend in California’s precipitation and yet California is experiencing much more frequent drought events,” Diffenbaugh said.

What has changed, however, is the temperature. Warmer-than-average temperatures have become more common than cooler-than-average temperatures.

And during low precipitation years warmer-than-average temperatures are about twice as likely to result in a drought.

“Because California has been warming the risk of drought is increasing,” Diffenbaugh said.

Increasing likelihood of droughts in California wasn’t the only scientifically established trend Diffenbaugh covered.

He also showed how the reduction in Arctic sea ice in recent years is well beyond what is expected from natural warming cycles.

“The highest Arctic sea ice year is still lower than what used to be the lowest sea ice year,” Diffenbaugh said. “You talk about new normal, this is beyond new normal.”

Access to climate research and the people who produce it helps the meteorologists improve the confidence with which they discuss climate issues with their audience.

They discussed how their presentation of climate issues has changed over the years as scientists have produced increasingly convincing evidence of how human-induced climate change threatens communities.

“Is it a reality? The answer is yes? Is it caused by man? The answer is yes? What’s our future? That is the question we cover,” said Paul Goodloe, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel. “Although it has been politicized we are not political. We cover what it is. And it is reality.”